Mechanism analysis and dynamic simulation of landslide-generated debris flow influenced by forest fire prevention road

Building the forest fire prevention road in mountainous areas is an effective means to prevent forest fire from spreading wantonly. Nevertheless, adverse influences are that the construction of these roads has destroyed the inherent stability of the original slope, resulting a large number of unstable slopes appear in the catchment, which could trigger human-generated landslides and debris flows. On June 17, 2022, a landslide-generated debris flow occurred in the Longjiagou catchment, Mianning County, Sichuan Province. The initial landslide that induced this debris flow is one of the unstable slopes on the forest fire prevention road. After the debris flow event, we conducted a detailed on-site investigation of the Longjiagou catchment. Many unstable slopes have been found near the road, and the width of cracks at the rear edge of some unstable slopes has exceeded 10 cm. This is already a very dangerous precursor signal for landslides or debris flow. And several soil samples were collected in the catchment to test the hydraulic conductivity and particle size distribution of soil at different locations. Combined with multi-source data, we comprehensively analyzed the cause and mechanism of the disaster. The dynamic process modeling framework of earth-surfaced flow—Massflow—was adopted to simulate the dynamic process of the debris flow to support the quantitative analysis of this disaster. The results show that the simulation results are basically consistent with the actual situation. Based on field reconnaissance and numerical simulation, the mechanism of debris flow is comprehensively analyzed, which can provide important insights and guidance for the prediction and prevention of such debris flow disasters.