Displacement prediction in colluvial landslides, Three Gorges Reservoir, China

The prediction of active landslide displacement is a critical component of an early warning system and helps prevent property damage and loss of human lives. For the colluvial landslides in the Three Gorges Reservoir, the monitored displacement, precipitation, and reservoir level indicated that the characteristics of the deformations were closely related to the seasonal fluctuation of rainfall and reservoir level and that the displacement curve versus time showed a stepwise pattern. Besides the geological conditions, landslide displacement also depended on the variation in the influencing factors. Two typical colluvial landslides, the Baishuihe landslide and the Bazimen landslide, were selected for case studies. To analyze the different response components of the total displacement, the accumulated displacement was divided into a trend and a periodic component using a time series model. For the prediction of the periodic displacement, a back-propagation neural network model was adopted with selected factors including (1) the accumulated precipitation during the last 1-month period, (2) the accumulated precipitation over a 2-month period, (3) change of reservoir level during the last 1 month, (4) the average elevation of the reservoir level in the current month, and (5) the accumulated displacement increment during 1 year. The prediction of the displacement showed a periodic response in the displacement as a function of the variation of the influencing factors. The prediction model provided a good representation of the measured slide displacement behavior at the Baishuihe and the Bazimen sites, which can be adopted for displacement prediction and early warning of colluvial landslides in the Three Gorges Reservoir.