Understanding shallow landslides in Campos do Jordão municipality – Brazil: disentangling the anthropic effects from natural causes in the disaster of 2000

Understanding shallow landslides in Campos do Jordão municipality – Brazil: disentangling the anthropic effects from natural causes in the disaster of 2000

Located in a mountainous area of south-eastern Brazil, the municipality of Campos do Jordão has been hit by several landslides in recent history. Among those events, the landslides of early 2000 were significant in terms of the number of deaths (10), the population affected and the destruction of in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Natural hazards and earth system sciences Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 15 - 30
Main Authors: Mendes, Rodolfo M, de Andrade, Marcio Roberto M, Tomasella, Javier, de Moraes, Marcio Augusto E, Scofield, Graziela B
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Katlenburg-Lindau Copernicus GmbH 03-01-2018
Copernicus Publications
Subjects:
Area
Brazil
Computer simulation
Disasters
Emergency communications systems
Environmental aspects
Fatalities
Floods
Geology
Geotechnical engineering
Hazardous areas
Human behavior
Human factors
Hydrology
Landslides
Landslides & mudslides
Lithology
Mountainous areas
Natural disasters
Numerical experiments
Policies
Precipitation
Public policy
Rain
Rainfall
Slope
Slope stability
Software
Stability analysis
Storm damage
Studies
Surveying
Urban areas
Brazil
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Summary:Located in a mountainous area of south-eastern Brazil, the municipality of Campos do Jordão has been hit by several landslides in recent history. Among those events, the landslides of early 2000 were significant in terms of the number of deaths (10), the population affected and the destruction of infrastructure that was caused. The purpose of this study is to assess the relative contribution of natural and human factors to triggering the landslides of the 2000 event. To achieve this goal, a detailed geotechnical survey was conducted in three representative slopes of the area to obtain geotechnical parameters needed for slope stability analysis. Then, a set of numerical experiments with GEO-SLOPE software was designed, including separate natural and anthropic factors. Results showed that natural factors, that is, high-intensity rainfall and geotechnical conditions, were not severe enough to trigger landslides in the study area and that human disturbance was entirely responsible for the landslide events of 2000. Since the anthropic effects used in the simulations are typical of hazardous urban areas in Brazil, we concluded that the implementation of public policies that constrain the occupation of landslide susceptible areas are urgently needed.
ISSN:1684-9981
1561-8633
1684-9981
DOI:10.5194/nhess-18-15-2018