Causes and Types of Slope Failures
The ground is seldom flat. There are natural slopes all around us on the ground, going up and down hills or valleys. Man-made slopes are used mostly in infrastructure construction like in roads and dams. But nothing is permanent and so slopes destabilize and fail as well. Today, we will talk about the causes and types of slope failures in this article.
Unstable Slopes
Natural forces like wind, water, and ice often create slopes on their own accord. And similarly, they also go on to destroy or at least erode the slopes they have created. This effect extends to man-made slopes as well, though they are engineered to be sturdier. Often unstable topography itself results in unstable slopes.
Slopes can fail in ways, depending upon how and when they fail. Sometimes the sloped ground collapses suddenly, causing major accidents and taking lives. Sometimes the sloped ground just settles slowly, over a long time. Sometimes only a smaller and weaker part breaks down, sometimes a whole hillside may come sliding down.
To prevent such mishaps, geologists and geotechnical engineers have to pay attention to many intricate details that determine the strength of the ground in the chosen place. The factors that determine this are geological features of the section of ground, groundwater presence, surface drainage, and most of all, shear strength of the soil - which directly depends upon the type and quality of soil.