Hydrogeological Instability in Cohesive Soils

289 Pages·2018·19.544 MB·English

by  Luigi Coppola

Luigi Coppola
Hydrogeological
Instability in
Cohesive Soils
Techniques for Prediction, Prevention
and Control
Hydrogeological Instability in Cohesive Soils
Luigi Coppola
Hydrogeological Instability
in Cohesive Soils
Techniques for Prediction, Prevention
and Control
Linguistic Review by Dante Valerio Tedesco
123
Luigi Coppola
University of Basilicata
Potenza
Italy
ISBN978-3-319-74330-1 ISBN978-3-319-74331-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74331-8
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To my students and to all those ones who
want to continue along this route
Preface
Thenaturalenvironmentisaperfectbody,ruledbychemical–physicallawshighly
appropriate to the overall functionality of planet Earth. In such an environment,
hydrogeological instability has its own function which is not always perceived as
necessary and inescapable within the evolutive cycle of nature by anthropic com-
munities. It is realised about the existence of landslides only during the mournful
hydrogeological disasters so frequent along the orogenic ranges subjected to
occasional and/or persistent rainfalls. Can we, as a consequence, attribute to
hydrogeological disasters the simple function of accidentality or fortuity? The
processes or events which actually give life to inorganic matter are not casual
neither even less accidental. It is particularly ingenuous thinking that a natural
phenomenon like landslides, so much complex and at the same time so much
repetitive, can exist due to simple fortuity. There is no place in nature for the
indeterminationoffunctions,evenifitderivesfrombiologicalorgeologicalbodies,
otherwise the Environment could degenerate in Chaos.
Hydrogeological disasters are actually considered as such only when the rela-
tionship between anthropic activity and local environment is considered, which
seems to be the only factor making landslides a natural calamity. If such per-
spective, in facts, is addressed to the vulnerability, often very high, of human
settling systems to which the intensive exploitation offorested areas is added, the
environmental imbalance assumes such a relevance to change in deep the
arrangement of torrential waterways, furthermore very dynamic, which represent a
further cause of the erosional process of orogenic ranges.
Startingfromthisassumption,isitpossibletopredictandpreventthetriggering
of a landslide in cohesive soils?
The approach to the study and analysis of a rotational landslide is currently
confined within the limited scope of a numeric model; this limits the adequate
comprehension of the real mechanisms which rule strains at failure. In fact,
numerous are the uncertainties on the mechanical behaviour of soils subjected to
thrusting stresses and to the evolution of the technical characteristics of moving
masses and on the strain level during time. The problem of the stability of natural
slopes in clay is currently considered as if the sliding mass was rigid along the
vii
viii Preface
whole sliding surface. The failure effect is valued by means of methods of calcu-
lation which schematise the nature and the characteristics of the soil. The sliding
mass is then subdivided in a limited number of simple elements which do not
represent the intrinsic complexity of the body of the mass itself. No account is
taken, furthermore, of the heterogeneity and of the natural discontinuities which
everysoiltypehasinsitu,whichinsertinthefailureprocessbymeansofascaling
factorandwhichdemonstratetovaryfromplacetoplace.Theslidingmassisthen
modelled regardless to its condition as a living being, to its function as an envi-
ronmentalentity,toitsrelationshipwiththesurroundingterritorialunits,toitsorder
and to the discipline which its own nature obliges to respect, to the kinematics
which it shows during and after the failure and from which the hydrogeological
hazard depends on.
Unfortunately, mathematics does not succeed in connecting to this reality and
neither with whatever else complex reality regarding the physics of evolutionary
processes of the Environment. Why?
When complex natural phenomena are explained through a series of equations,
builtupwiththetechniquesoflogicalprocesses,mathematicsdoesnotperceivethe
realityoflifebecauseitsrulescannotevolve,onthecontraryofthelawsofNature.
Nature, in fact, is founded on a dualistic language which is at the base of human
mental reasoning. Natural physical processes instead are based upon a monistic
ratio. Parts of thenaturaltruthare therefore indescribable through the language of
oppositions or of equalities of calculations and, very often, inaccessible to mental
reasoningbecausethisisoutsideofthepotentialscopeofphysicalreality.Ourmind
canalsoperceive,withinthescopeofthenormalpossibilitiesofsensesexperience,
a natural physical process but is not often able to describe it in numeric terms.
Notwithstanding this, some physical phenomena can be subjected to a dualistic
interpretation. The most evident example is the one of Albert Einstein’s (1879–
1955)theoryofrestrictedrelativity(E=mc2),awardedoftheNobelPrizein1921,
which established the equivalence between the concepts of mass and energy; or
when the quantum physicist Eugene Wigner (1902–1995), awarded of the Nobel
Prizein1963,wroteafundamentalpaperontherelationshipsamongmathematics,
physicsandsciencesobservingthatitwaspossible,byusingabstractmathematical
groups, to create models of natural phenomena through the calculation of sym-
metries.The geniusofWigner,joinedtotheone ofHermann Weyl (1928),wasto
formulate a purely dualistic reasoning by using quite complex mathematical pro-
cessesinordertointerpretphysicalphenomenaexpressedbytheNatureinmonistic
terms. The fact that the mathematical theory of groups produced such important
predictions of a natural physical system does not mean, however, that it interacts
with thesystemitself ineachandeverycondition.Anumberofmodernphysicists
consider in fact that such a link is likely to represent a spurious relationship
established over space and time and which seems to exist only in function of how
the human mind designed the experiment. The casual and statistical character of
quantum physics, in fact, has never been satisfactory in determining the instant
ofthefailureofaslopeneitherhaseverbeenabletoevaluatewherealongtheslope
thehydrogeologicaldisruptioncouldtakeplaceandhowitcouldlikelybebutafter
Preface ix
the triggering; only at that point quantum physics is able to provide a response to
thenaturalphenomenon.Itisundeniable,however,thatourmindisabletoperceive
Nature even if is not always able to express the mode of perception by means of
mathematical calculations. But, if so, how can it be possible to pursue the pre-
diction and the prevention of landslides?
Inproblemsofgeologicalnature,thedichotomybetweenthedualismofhuman
thinking and the monism of natural processes is exasperated by the number of
unknowns necessary to the mathematical process. The perception of the physical
aspectsofeachnaturalprocessinvolvingsoilsorsubsoilsiscertainlymoretruthful
ifsupportedbyinsituvalidationtestsusinginstrumentsforscientificinvestigations.
As a consequence, if the prediction and prevention of landslides is wanted to be
carried out, the three-dimensional and surely ingenuous viewing on the use of
numerical models, which reduces landslides to a set of distinct elements, tangible
and independent, must be abandoned to pass to the alternative of the becoming of
an indivisible totality of natural phenomena (Bohm 1955), which comprises,
obviously,thetimefactor.Yes,time!Anothergreatunknownimpossibletoevaluate
mathematically in order to define those processes. So, what? A. Einstein, in the
meanwhile, convinced us, about one century ago, that space and time are insepa-
rable and curved. Quantum physics, furthermore, tells us that time begins when
begins an interaction among quanta. Time, thus, emerges, like space, from the
quantumgravitational field; “every object intheUniverse hasits own time flowing
and what determines this time is the gravitational field” (Rovelli 2014). However,
at a local level when the quantic nature of environmental phenomena is taken into
account,therelativetimedoesnotworkanymore.Doesthismeanthattimehasno
longer value in natural processes? On the contrary, it means that time is variable
from point to point and therefore it cannot be defined within the mathematical
process on the evolution of the Environment, neither as an ordered elementary
entity in a common succession of instants … “The dance of the Nature does not
develop to the rhythm of the baton of a single conductor who beats the universal
time:everyprocessdancesindependentlyfromtheneighbouringones,followingits
ownrhythm.Theflowingoftimeisinternaltotheworld,beginsintheworlditself,
from the relationships among quantic events which are the world and generate
themselvestheirowntime.”Isitpossiblethereforetointroducethetimefactorinto
a deterministic equation to define the evolutive process of a landslide? Apparently
not!
Thealternativecanbeuniquelytorelyondirectanalyticalmethodsdevotedto
measure in locum the totality of mechanisms which rule the processes of
deformation at failure of a soil and interpret their developments. The logic is to
obtainfromtheslopeitselforfromthemountainsideitselfadeformationalresponse
astheresultofallthecomponents,variableornot,whichactontheeffectofground
failure in order to overtake a certain theoretical vision of the behaviour of the soil
andtoassumetheinsituexperienceasthedirect proof ofhydrogeological hazard.
By means of a radical renovation of the methodology of analysis, the present
book individuates, thus, the analytical elements able to lead to the delimitation
oftheareasunderhydrogeologicalhazardandprovidespracticalmethodstoobtain
x Preface
the resolutive values for the early evaluation of the deformation at failure. The
book, furthermore, contains numerous practical examples on the observation and
analysis of the territory correspondent to the theoretical discussion.
Thefieldofinterest isrelatedtocohesivesoilsorpredominantlycohesivesoils.
The type of failures considered are rotational and translational, according to the
classification given by Varnes (1978), which represent circa 70% of the landslides
occurring on the Earth.
Potenza, Italy Luigi Coppola
Curriculum vitae
Prof. Luigi Coppola
Full Professor of Applied Geology–University of Basilicata
Retired since 1st January 2011
Email: [email protected]
A1) Chair of Applied Geology and Georesources–University of Basilicata from
01.10.1984 to 30.09.2010.
A2) Head of the Department of Geological Siences–University of Basilicata
from 01.10.2002 to 31.12.2010.
B1) Author of 82No. scientific papers on national and international journals;
18No. summaries presented to conferences; 2No. didactic educational books.
C1) School of Civil Engineering–Kingston Polytechnic–UK
Referent: Full Prof. Edward Nicholas Bromhead
(cid:129) Climate changes, landslides and erosion in the semiarid region of the
Mediterranean areas subject to recent uplift.
(cid:129) Risk from the stability of coastal landslides (ris.co.la).
(cid:129) Fossil landslide dams and their exploitation for hydropower in the Italian
dolomites.
C2) Department of Civil Engineering–Aristotle University of Tessaloniki–
Greece
Referent: Associate Prof. Dr. S.C. Bandis
(cid:129) Environment technologies to forecast, prevent and reduce natural risks
(Hydrological and Hydrogeological risks).
C3) Department of Geology–National Taiwan University–Taipei
Referent: Full prof. Hongey Chen
(cid:129) Geohazards in a neotectonic terrain.
(cid:129) Fluvial dynamics for protection from water courses and the protection of water
courses.
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