Download or read book Mudflows and Landslides written by Michael Woods and published by Lerner Publications. This book was released on 2006-12-28 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes mudflows and landslides, providing information on how they develop, where they are most likely to occur, what tragedies have happened in the past, and what steps can be taken to develop warning systems that will save lives.
Download or read book Introduction to the Physics of Landslides written by Fabio Vittorio de Blasio and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-05-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landslides represent one of the most destructive natural catastrophes. They can reach extremely long distances and velocities, and are capable of wiping out human communities and settlements. Yet landslides have a creative facet as they contribute to the modification of the landscape. They are the consequence of the gravity pull jointly with the tectonic disturbance of our living planet. Landslides are most often studied within a geotechnical and geomorphological perspective. Engineering calculations are traditionally applied to the stability of terrains. In this book, landslides are viewed as a physical phenomenon. A physical understanding of landslides is a basis for modeling and mitigation and for understanding their flow behavior and dynamics. We still know relatively little about many aspects of landslide physics. It is only recently that the field of landslide dynamics is approaching a more mature stage. This is testified by the release of modelling tools for the simulation of landslides and debris flows. In this book the emphasis is placed on the problems at the frontier of landslide research. Each chapter is self-consistent, with questions and arguments introduced from the beginning.
Download or read book River Dynamics and Integrated River Management written by Zhao-Yin Wang and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-09-24 with total page 855 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "River Dynamics and Integrated River Management” provides comprehensive information on rivers for integrated management, including natural processes, stresses resulting from human activities, and restoration of various parts of the river basin, including the watershed, mountain streams, alluvial rivers, estuaries, and natural and man-made lakes. Essential concepts, traditional and modern, such as river patterns, step-pool systems, vegetation-erosion charts, habitat diversity, and flushing times of bays, are clearly defined physically and explained with figures and pictures. Detailed mathematics and rigorous analyses are avoided so as to facilitate a holistic view of the subject of integrated river management. Researchers can easily familiarize themselves with the science of river management in its widest sense with the impressive pictures and examples in this book. Dr. Zhaoyin Wang is a professor at the Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, China. Dr. Joseph H.W. Lee is a Chair Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, China. Dr. Charles S. Melching is a Professor at the College of Engineering, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Download or read book Physical Geology written by Steven Earle and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a discount Black and white version. Some images may be unclear, please see BCCampus website for the digital version.This book was born out of a 2014 meeting of earth science educators representing most of the universities and colleges in British Columbia, and nurtured by a widely shared frustration that many students are not thriving in courses because textbooks have become too expensive for them to buy. But the real inspiration comes from a fascination for the spectacular geology of western Canada and the many decades that the author spent exploring this region along with colleagues, students, family, and friends. My goal has been to provide an accessible and comprehensive guide to the important topics of geology, richly illustrated with examples from western Canada. Although this text is intended to complement a typical first-year course in physical geology, its contents could be applied to numerous other related courses.
Download or read book Terrigenous Mass Movements written by Biswajeet Pradhan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-04-02 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terrestrial mass movements (i.e. cliff collapses, soil creeps, mudflows, landslides etc.) are severe forms of natural disasters mostly occurring in mountainous terrain, which is subjected to specific geological, geomorphological and climatological conditions, as well as to human activities. It is a challenging task to accurately define the position, type and activity of mass movements for the purpose of creating inventory records and potential vulnerability maps. Remote sensing techniques, in combination with Geographic Information System tools, allow state-of-the-art investigation of the degree of potential mass movements and modeling surface processes for hazard and risk mapping. Similarly, through statistical prediction models, future mass-movement-prone areas can be identified and damages can to a certain extent be minimized. Issues of scale and selection of morphological attributes for the scientific analysis of mass movements call for new developments in data modeling and spatio-temporal GIS analysis. The book is a product of a cooperation between the editors and several contributing authors, addressing current issues and recent developments in GI technology and mass movements research. Its fundamental treatment of this technology includes data modeling, topography, geology, geomorphology, remote sensing, artificial neural networks, binomial regression, fuzzy logic, spatial statistics and analysis, and scientific visualization. Both theoretical and practical issues are addressed.
Download or read book The Dynamics of Disaster written by Susan W. Kieffer and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural disasters bedevil our planet, and each appears to be a unique event. Leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer shows how all disasters are connected. In 2011, there were fourteen natural calamities that each destroyed over a billion dollars’ worth of property in the United States alone. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast and major earthquakes struck in Italy, the Philippines, Iran, and Afghanistan. In the first half of 2013, the awful drumbeat continued—a monster supertornado struck Moore, Oklahoma; a powerful earthquake shook Sichuan, China; a cyclone ravaged Queensland, Australia; massive floods inundated Jakarta, Indonesia; and the largest wildfire ever engulfed a large part of Colorado. Despite these events, we still behave as if natural disasters are outliers. Why else would we continue to build new communities near active volcanoes, on tectonically active faults, on flood plains, and in areas routinely lashed by vicious storms? A famous historian once observed that “civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice.” In the pages of this unique book, leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer provides a primer on most types of natural disasters: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, hurricanes, cyclones, and tornadoes. By taking us behind the scenes of the underlying geology that causes them, she shows why natural disasters are more common than we realize, and that their impact on us will increase as our growing population crowds us into ever more vulnerable areas. Kieffer describes how natural disasters result from “changes in state” in a geologic system, much as when water turns to steam. By understanding what causes these changes of state, we can begin to understand the dynamics of natural disasters. In the book’s concluding chapter, Kieffer outlines how we might better prepare for, and in some cases prevent, future disasters. She also calls for the creation of an organization, something akin to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but focused on pending natural disasters.
Download or read book Debris flow Hazards and Related Phenomena written by Matthias Jakob and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-12-26 with total page 795 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With climate change and deforestation, debris flows and debris avalanches have become the most significant landslide hazards in many countries. In recent years there have been numerous debris flow avalanches in Southern Europe, South America and the Indian Subcontinent, resulting in major catastrophes and large loss of life. This is therefore a major high-profile problem for the world's governments and for the engineers and scientists concerned. Matthias Jakob and Oldrich Hungr are ideally suited to edit this book. Matthias Jakob has worked on debris flow for over a decade and has had numerous papers published on the topic, as well as working as a consultant on debris flow for municipal and provincial governments. Oldrich Hungr has worked on site investigations on debris flow, avalanches and rockfall, with emphasis on slope stability analysis and evaluation of risks to roads in built-up areas. He has also developed mathematical models for landslide dynamic analysis. They have invited world-renowned experts to joint them in this book.
Download or read book Landslides Analysis and Control written by National Research Council (U.S.). Transportation Research Board and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together, from a wide range of experience, such information as may be useful in recognizing, avoiding, controlling, designing for, and correcting movement. Current geologic concepts and engineering principles and techniques are introduced, and both the analysis and control of soil and rock-slopes are addressed. New methods of stability analysis and the use of computer techniques in implementing these methods are included. Rock slope engineering and the selecting of shear-strength parameters for slope-stability analyses are covered in separate chapters.
Download or read book Landslides from Massive Rock Slope Failure written by Stephen G. Evans and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-05-17 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amongst the thematic topics discussed are global frequency, impacts on society, analysis of initial rock slope failure, monitoring of rock slope movement, analysis and modeling of post-failure behaviour, volcanic landslides, and influences of massive rock slope failure on the geomorphological evolution of mountain regions. Regional contributions include reports on rockslides and rock avalanches in Norway, western Canada, the Andes of Argentina, the Karakoram Himalaya, the European Alps, the Appennines, and the mountains of Central Asia. Rockslides and rock avalanches in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union are discussed in detail for the first time in an English-language book. These landslides include the 1911 Usoi rockslide, that dammed 75 km-long Lake Sarez, and the 1949 Khait rock avalanche that may have killed up to 28,000 people. Both landslides were earthquake-triggered and both are located in Tajikistan. An additional highlight is a detailed description and analysis of large-scale artificial rock avalanches triggered by underground nuclear explosions during the testing programme of the former Soviet Union.
Download or read book The Control of Nature written by John McPhee and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity. Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions. For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control. In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches. The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation. At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is. In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away. It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast. As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history. On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example. McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers. Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world. After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow. Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons. At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.
Download or read book Landslides Disaster Risk Reduction written by Kyoji Sassa and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-10-27 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book documents the First World Landslide Forum, which was jointly organized by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), eight UN organizations (UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UN/ISDR, UNU, UNEP, World Bank, UNDP) and four NGOs (International Council for Science, World Federation of Engineering Organizations, Kyoto Univ. and Japan Landslide Society) in Tokyo in 2008. The material consists of four parts: The Open Forum "Progress of IPL Activities; Four Thematic Lectures in the Plenary Symposium "Global Landslide Risk Reduction"; Six Keynote Lectures in the Plenary session; and the aims and overviews of eighteen parallel sessions (dealing with various aspects necessary for landslide disaster risk reduction such as: observations from space; climate change and slope instability; landslides threatening heritage sites; the economic and social impact of landslides; monitoring, prediction and early warning; and risk-management strategies in urban area, etc.) Thus it enables the reader to benefit from a wide range of research intended to reduce risk due to landslide disasters as presented in the first global multi-disciplinary meeting.
Download or read book Progress in Landslide Science written by Kyoji Sassa and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-12-29 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents current progress in landslide science and consists of four parts: progress in landslide science, landslide dynamics, landslide monitoring, and landslide risk assessment. It provides useful information to those working on landslide risk-mitigation planning. It can be also used as an introductory textbook for college students who wish to learn fundamental scientific achievements in the field of landslide disaster reduction.
Download or read book Catastrophic Landslides written by Stephen G. Evans and published by Geological Society of America. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume documents advances in our knowledge of catastrophic landslides, providing a worldwide survey of catastrophic landslide events. It draws on South America to illustrate dramatically the impact of these phenomena on human populations. The occurrence of catastrophic landslides, including site-specific insights, is shown through six events of the past 20 years. Several other chapters focus on the mechanisms involved with catastrophic landsides both in relation to geologic factors in a particular geographic area as well as to specific geologic processes.
Download or read book Landslides written by Kyoji Sassa and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-01-16 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on contributions to the first General Assembly of the International Consortium on Landslides, this reference and status report emphasizes the mechanisms of different types of landslides, landslide risk analysis, and sustainable disaster management. It comprises the achievements of the ICL over the past three years, since the Kyoto assembly. It consists of three parts: research results of the International Programme on Landslides (IPL); contributions on landslide risk analysis; and articles on sustainable disaster management. In addition, the history of the ICL activities (under the support of UNESCO, WMO, FAO, UN/ISDR, and UNU) is recounted to create a comprehensive overview of international activity on landslides. The contributions reflect a wide range of topics and concerns, randing from field studies, identification of objects of cultural heritage at landslide risk, as well as landslide countermeasures.
Download or read book Steady Movement of Landslides in Fine grained Soils written by Rex L. Baum and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analysis of a possible mechanism for sliding of landslides on irregular slip surfaces shows how surface roughness can retard movement of landslides in fine-grained soils.
Download or read book Landslides written by Ernest D. Werner and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landslide is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rock falls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments. Although the action of gravity is the primary driving force for a landslide to occur, there are other contributing factors affecting the original slope stability. Typically, pre-conditional factors build up specific sub-surface conditions that make the area/slope prone to failure, whereas the actual landslide often requires a trigger before being released. This book discusses such triggers, as well as their outcomes. Studies of landslides that have occurred in various geographical settings are also among the topics examined in this book, as well as an analysis of the factors that caused them.
Download or read book Building Knowledge for Geohazard Assessment and Management in the Caucasus and other Orogenic Regions written by Fabio Luca Bonali and published by Springer. This book was released on 2022-01-08 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the state of art of research related to geo-related hazards in the Caucasus and other orogenic regions; it is also devoted to shedding light on a broad array of geological phenomena as well as discussing innovative tools and strategies for geohazard assessment. Additional emphasis is placed on preventive and mitigation measures, which might be helpful in tackling seismic, volcanic and landslide risks affecting major lifelines and infrastructures. The innovative, multidisciplinary methodologies illustrated in this volume may be successfully applied to other orogenic regions across the globe. The book features major scientific contributions from experts working on different Earth Science topics, such as seismology, structural geology, applied geology and volcanology. Its chapters describe a wide gamut of cutting-edge research methodologies and are thus intended to be read and shared by the worldwide Earth Science community. In particular, the readers will have a chance to gain a thorough knowledge of a number of key geological features that can be observed across both the Greater and Lesser Caucasus. Moreover, the volume provides a thorough description of the techniques employed to assess seismic hazard in major cities - such as microzonation - and an overview of the efforts taken to monitor and prevent seismic and landslide hazard posed to vital energy infrastructures in the Caucasus region.