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Spatial features of debris flows and their rainfall thresholds in the Wenchuan earthquake-affected area

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Abstract

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake greatly altered the thresholds for rainfall-triggered debris flows within the affected area. Debris flows were widely and densely distributed, and they exhibited a range of differing local rainfall thresholds. This study looked at 518 debris flow events that occurred post-earthquake in order to analyze their spatial characteristics. The duration D (in h) and the average rainfall intensity I (in mm/h) that triggered the debris flows were determined for 252 of these events in order to analyze the spatial features of rainfall thresholds. Results show that 49 % of debris flows occurred in the highest-intensity seismic zone, 58 % occurred within 10 km of active faults, and 49 % occurred in areas with humid climate. Rainfall thresholds in these three regions were persistently lower than others. Moreover, debris flows were most frequent in watersheds smaller than 5 km2, and rainfall thresholds tended to decrease with a decrease in watershed size. Given the abundant loose materials available throughout the study area, 11 extreme debris flow-prone sub-regions were selected to illustrate the spatial features of rainfall thresholds in relation to local climate conditions. The lowest and highest I–D thresholds in the sub-regions examined were I = 5.94D −0.70 (2 < D < 53) and I = 21.4D −0.58 (3 < D < 50), respectively. The lowest and mean rainfall intensities needed to trigger debris flows were power-related with the local maximum 1- and 24-h rainfall. By normalizing the rainfall intensity (I) by mean annual precipitation (MAP), the I MAP–D thresholds were determined. Normalized results showed that the lowest and highest I MAP–D thresholds were I MAP  = 0.0034D −0.55 (2 < D < 53) and I MAP  = 0.0090D −0.40 (3 < D < 51), respectively. Such results are useful for debris flow forecasting based on empirical rainfall thresholds and have implications for hazard and risk assessment in this region.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the Meteorological Bureau of Sichuan Province for providing rainfall data. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 41301008), the Key Deployment Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZZD-EW-05-01), and the National Key Technologies R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2012BAK10B04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Mountain Surface Process and Hazards/Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Xiaojun Guo, Peng Cui, Yong Li & Jianqiang Zhang

  2. Asian Network on Debris Flow, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Xiaojun Guo, Peng Cui, Yong Li & Jianqiang Zhang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xiaojun Guo

  4. Center for Excellencein Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China

    Peng Cui

  5. Sichuan Meteorological Administration, Chengdu, 610072, China

    Li Ma

  6. International Erosion Control Association, Denver, Colorado, 80207, USA

    William B. Mahoney

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  1. Xiaojun Guo
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  2. Peng Cui
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  3. Yong Li
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  4. Jianqiang Zhang
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Correspondence to Peng Cui.

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Guo, X., Cui, P., Li, Y. et al. Spatial features of debris flows and their rainfall thresholds in the Wenchuan earthquake-affected area. Landslides 13, 1215–1229 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-015-0608-z

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