Prediction of changes in pore-water pressure response due to rainfall events

Abstract

Global climate change is expected to result in worldwide increases in temperature and alteration of rainfall patterns. Such changes have the potential to activate rainfall triggered landslides and a study is underway in Singapore to investigate these possible effects. The main objective of this work is to calibrate a numerical model for future prediction by making use of cases where in-situ measurements of pore-water pressures/suctions have been made in Singapore. The results presented in this study show that the prediction of changes in the pore-water pressure profile is highly sensitive to the soil-hydraulic properties used in the analysis. It was found that a SEEP/W flow model is able to capture the general trend of field behaviour of the changes in the pore-water pressure profile response due to rainfall events. However, the results from the numerical models indicate that further research is warranted to improve the accuracy of the numerical analysis by better definition of critical input parameters. © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, London.