DOI 10.1007/s12665-015-4089-0
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Marco Masetti
Abstract This study focuses on the relationships be- hydrological conditions. The proposed stability model was
tween hydrological processes and the stability of terraced calibrated and evaluated on recorded past rainfall events.
slopes. Emphasis is given to the presence of dry-stone It resulted to be a good instrument for the identification of
retaining walls and how to explicitly consider them when the most unstable areas when stressed with high pore-
performing a distributed stability analysis. Valtellina, an water pressure conditions.
Alpine valley of Northern Italy, is selected as study area.
In detail, the slope uphill the village of Tresenda, affected Keywords Stability analysis Terraced slopes
by several superficial landslides since 1983, is studied. Shallow landslides Valtellina Distributed models
Dry-stone walls heavily influence the hydrological and Global limit equilibrium
geotechnical processes at the slope scale, and it is there-
fore crucial to consider them when performing a stability
analysis on mountainous terraced areas. Walls are usually Introduction
0.60–1.00 m wide, and therefore, base maps (Digital
Elevation Models and soil depth map) with a horizontal Terraced slopes are a typical example of the earliest hu-
resolution of 1 m have been appositely derived. Working man-modified environment aiming to adapt the landscape
at this horizontal resolution leads to the failure of some and the morphology of the territory available for the de-
basic assumptions of the infinite slope method, usually velopment of anthropogenic activities. Terraced slopes
applied for distributed stability analysis. In this study, we constitute a very common anthropogenic-modified land-
propose an alternative approach based on the global scape in hilly and mountainous area of the Mediterranean
method of equilibrium applied to sections of single ter- basin (Koulouri and Giourga 2007; Garcı́a-Ruiz and Lana-
races one cell wide. A specific sensitivity analysis allowed Renault 2011) and all over the world in general (Patel
to fix some constrains to the model, in order to improve 2012).
the reliability of the results under different mechanical and The development and realization of terraces should
improve the general stability of slopes, which becomes
strictly dependent upon the mechanical properties of the
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (doi:10.1007/s12665-015-4089-0) contains supplementary system and the modified runoff-infiltration relationships
material, which is available to authorized users. (Yeh and Lee 2013). Nevertheless, terraced slopes do not
guarantee complete stability in many alpine areas. The
C. Camera (&)
central part of Valtellina (Northern Italy, Central Alps)
Energy, Environment and Water Research Center,
The Cyprus Institute, 20 Konstantinou Kavafi, represents an interesting case study due to the landslides
2121 Aglantzia, Nicosia, Cyprus occurred in the recent past. A series of events from May
e-mail: c.camera@cyi.ac.cy 1983 to July 2008 affected the terraced slopes on the
northern flank of the valley between Sondrio and Tirano
T. Apuani M. Masetti
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra ‘A. Desio’, Università degli (Cancelli and Nova 1985; Quan Luna et al. 2010; Blahut
Studi di Milano, Via Mangiagalli 34, 20133 Milan, Italy et al. 2012).
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Many authors have recently investigated the problem of calculates the safety factor along each section, consistent
terraced slope stability in the area by producing regional with the results obtained from the hydrological model. The
susceptibility and hazard maps (Blahut et al. 2010a, b; study is an advanced development of the approach pre-
Sterlacchini et al. 2011). A vulnerability assessment at a sented by Camera et al. (2013).
local scale was proposed too (Quan Luna et al. 2011) to
further develop quantitative risk scenarios (Quan Luna
et al. 2010, 2014). However, all these studies have not Study area
developed a complete physically based approach that takes
into account the hydrogeological and geotechnical pro- Tresenda is a village located in mid-Valtellina, a U-shaped
cesses that can affect terraced slopes. A first step in this valley of the Central Alps in Lombardy Region (northern
direction is represented by the studies of Camera et al. Italy) (Fig. 1). The characteristic East–West direction of
(2012, 2014), who showed, working at the single terrace the valley is due to the tectonic lineament along which it is
scale, how the main cause of failure in these environments imposed, the Periadriatic Line. This major tectonic line
is related to the building-up of saturated horizons in the divides the Southern Alps, where the study area lies, from
backfill of the dry-stone wall. Due to the overpressure, the the internal part of the mountain chain. The bedrock is
wall bulges at toe and then collapses, leading to the sub- metamorphic and of Variscan origin. In the area it is rep-
sequent failure of the whole terrace. The single terrace resented by the fine-grained Edolo Schists (Beltrami et al.
model was therefore able to reproduce the mechanisms of 1971), recently mapped as part of the Aprica
failures observed on site in 1983 (Azzola and Tuia 1983). Tectonometamorphic Unit in the new 1:50.000 geology
The aim of this study is to develop a physically based map of Italy (Gosso et al. 2012). The surficial soils are of
methodology to determine, at the slope scale, the location glacial and colluvial origin; on the terraces, which cover
of potential superficial landslide source areas in a terraced great part of the northern flank of the valley (17 km2)
environment, taking into consideration the described pro- (Crosta et al. 2003), they have been intensely modified by
cesses. Changing the scale of the study, a complete new human activity. The natural and man-driven geomorpho-
approach in terms of variables determination (such as logical processes that affect the study area of Tresenda
Digital Elevation Model-DEM,and soil depth map) and make it one of the most representative slopes of Valtellina.
modeling scheme is required. The specific environment In the area, landforms like natural terraces, trenches, and
makes the change of scale very difficult to manage mainly counter-slopes highlight instability processes active at a
because of (1) the highly irregular topographical surface; regional scale. In addition, the natural geomorphology of
(2) the high variation of soil depth at the back of the wall the area has been re-modeled by a series of man-made
over a short spatial scale; and (3) the impossibility to use terraces created by retaining dry-stone walls. The number
standard methods as the infinite slope (Skempton and de and geometry of these terraces, originally built for agri-
Lory 1957), usually adopted for distributed stability ana- cultural purposes, is controlled by the bedrock topography.
lysis (e.g., Ray et al. 2011; Montrasio et al. 2012, Tsai and Nowadays, they are mainly used for vineyard cultivation,
Chiang 2013). In fact, in a terraced geomorphological but due to the impossibility of introducing mechanized
context, some basic assumptions of the infinite slope sta- practices, abandoned land is increasing. The wall’s height
bility method fail. The parallelism between topographical ranges from 1.4 to 2.5 m, and the soil has a depth usually
surface and potential sliding surface, the high ratio between not exceeding three meters. Only few scattered rock out-
slope length and failure surface depth as well as the lack of crops are visible over the slope.
abrupt changes in slope morphology are the most imme- In the past, the area experienced soil slips and debris
diate examples. A specific discussion on the limits of the flows, causing considerable damage and human casualties.
infinite slope model is given by Griffiths et al. (2011) and For this reasons, many studies were conducted on this
Milledge et al. (2012). subject (Azzola and Tuia 1983; Cancelli and Nova 1985;
In this study, a soft coupled hydrological-stability ap- Blahut et al. 2012; Camera et al. 2012; Quan Luna et al.
proach is used to evaluate slope stability. The approach 2014). In 1983, three soil slip/debris flow events caused the
follows a two-step process. The first step makes use of a death of 18 people in Tresenda and in the near village of
simplified unsaturated–saturated hydrogeological model to Valgella. In 2002, another similar event occurred in the
determine the changes in soil moisture and groundwater same area, likely causing only damages to buildings and
distribution possibly leading to the formation of local infrastructures. The failure surfaces were located at the
perched groundwater tables (PGTs). The second step is contact between soil and rock substratum and failure oc-
represented by a stability model, which has been curred when the wall’s resistance was not sufficient to react
specifically developed, and that allows to routinely apply a to the increasing acting forces due to soil saturation (Az-
global equilibrium analysis to sections of terrace. It zola and Tuia 1983).
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Fig. 1 Geographical location of Valtellina with details of the study area of Tresenda
After these events, the morphology of the area has been analysis was performed with the SARma Global Limit
significantly modified, due to stabilization works, new ter- Equilibrium code (SARGLE), which was specifically de-
races, paved paths, and drainage system construction, which veloped for this case study, and it is linked to STARWARS
have transformed the original infiltration and runoff for- through a soft coupling scheme. Links between the models
mation processes. The recent geomorphological modifica- and their main input and outcomes are summarized in the
tions and the progressive reduction of the retaining capacity flow chart of Fig. 2.
of the dry walls due to lack of maintenance reveal the
possibility of new ground movements (Camera et al. 2014). Hydrologic modeling
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Fig. 2 Schematic representation of the three main phases of the is precipitation, ET is evapotranspiration, ksat is the saturated
present study (rectangles), with their core models/activities (black hydraulic conductivity, hsat is the saturated water content, c is
rectangles), main input (ellipses), links (arrows), and outcomes. Prcp cohesion, / is the friction angle, and c is the bulk density
unsaturated hydraulic characteristics of the soil. Percola- Sarma’s (1973) Global Limit Equilibrium (GLE) approach
tion in the unsaturated zone is driven by gravity. Farrel and is proposed. SARGLE is soft-coupled to STARWARS,
Larson (1972) and Millington and Quirk (1959, 1961) using the output time series of water level and water con-
equations are used to determine the Soil Water Retention tent produced with the hydrologic model as input for the
Curve (SWRC) and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, stability analysis. Therefore, SARGLE calculates a sta-
respectively. PGTs can develop at the contact between soil bility steady-state solution for each time step of the hy-
and the underlying impervious bedrock, and saturated drologic model. We select this approach because it allows
fluxes are calculated depending on the local gradient of the keeping a hydrogeological continuity between the terraces
groundwater table. Properties are assigned to the soil on the but at the same time, it allows spotting landslide triggering
basis of land use classes. In addition, the model divides the areas on a terrace by terrace base, resembling the initiation
soil column into three layers with a progressively decrease mechanisms observed in the field (Azzola and Tuia 1983).
of the saturated hydraulic conductivity from top to bottom, GLE analyses calculate stability along slope sections;
due to the increasing density of sediments with depth. therefore, the first step consisted in dividing the study area
Additional details on the model can be found in van Beek in groups of cells resembling sections. A section cannot be
(2002), Malet et al. (2005), and Kuriakose et al. (2009a). wider than a single cell and is limited to a single terrace,
but a single terrace can be made up by multiple indepen-
SARma GLobal Equilibrium (SARGLE) distributed dent sections. A section begins in correspondence of a dry-
modeling stone wall and ends at the base of the next uphill wall and
therefore is constituted by more than one cell. In the sec-
As already mentioned, the stability problem cannot be tion, each cell is assimilated to a slice in the GLE whose
treated applying a simple distributed infinite slope stability height needs to be defined by an accurate soil depth map.
method, and therefore SARGLE, a new model based on Thus, the failure surface is assumed at the contact between
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the soil and the underlying bedrock. A total of 17,635 The model is built around an internal loop that allows
sections have been identified along a north–south direction. calculating, for each time step, the critical acceleration
In detail, in this study we implemented the GLE ap- for each terrace section. During each time step, the
proach proposed by Sarma (1973), which is applicable to values of variables such as water level and water content
both circular and non-circular failure surfaces. A scheme of are not changing and they do not influence the stability
the geometry of the problem and of the forces involved is parameters. Considering consecutive time steps, stability
given in Fig. 3. Respecting the equilibrium of forces (both is therefore assessed for consecutive steady-state cases,
horizonatal and vertical) and momentum, Sarma’s method so that no problems related to numerical stability can
calculates the critical horizontal acceleration (Kacc) neces- arise.
sary to induce the equilibrium state limit in the soil mass. A The dip angle of the bedrock, which can be easily ob-
null critical acceleration means that no acceleration is tained using usual functions in a GIS environment, is a
needed to reach the state limit (the mass is already at the value referring to the maximum slope in the aspect direc-
state limit) and corresponds to a Factor of Safety of 1. tion. As the terrace sections analyzed in the model are all
Sarma and Bhave (1974) demonstrated that it is possible to aligned along a North–South direction, the apparent slope
link the critical acceleration to the Factor of Safety (FS) along this direction was calculated. Simple trigonometric
with the following simple empirical formula: correction has therefore been applied to the slope map, and
FS ¼ 1:0 þ 3:33Kacc : ð1Þ resulting negative values (dip direction towards north)
were constrained to zero. Based on this map, to shorten
calculation times, all the terrace lines having an average
It results that FS is minor or equal to 1 for Kacc B 0 slope lesser than 0.58 were considered always stable with a
(unstable terraces) and FS B 1.5 for Kacc B 0.15 (terraces Kacc equal to 2.
close to instability).
Fig. 3 Geometry and forces involved in a limit equilibrium analysis with the methods of slices (modified from Sarma 1973)
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Preliminary analyses were performed to verify the is crucial for a reliable stability analysis (Kuriakose et al.
presence of any calculation instabilities, and to ensure the 2009b; Preti et al. 2013), especially when potential failure
stability of the model results, it was necessary to add other surfaces are located at the contact between soil and rock
constrains. The main constrains regard walls. Firstly, it was substratum. DEM and soil depth map in fact determine the
noted that often, if along a terrace line two or more con- depth of the potential failure surfaces and the geostatic
secutive cells with walls were present, the FS calculated pressure acting along them (Dahal et al. 2014). Moreover,
along the vertical boundaries of each slice (FLi) was they also influence the position and the development of
negative, so that the equilibrium of forces was not re- temporary perched water tables that modify shear strength
spected. According to Sarma (1973), FLi is calculated as along the failure surfaces. In terraced slopes, both DEM
ðEi Pwi Þ tan ui þ ci Hi and soil depth maps are particularly difficult to be esti-
FLi ¼ ; ð2Þ mated. It is mainly due to the peculiar morphology of the
Xi
terraced slope, where a series of very high changes in slope
where dip angle occur over a short spatial scale, also affecting the
Ki0 cni H 2 soil depth of the deposits above the rock substratum. Fi-
Ei ¼ ð3Þ nally, a high-resolution map is required, because the walls
2
are usually between 0.60 and 1 m wide, and a suitable
Rui cni H 2 single raster cell dimension is limited to a maximum of
Pwi ¼ ð4Þ
2 1 m2. In order to highlight the complexity of the task of
as defined in Fig. 3. The problem of having two or more deriving the two maps, the following parts contain a brief
cells characterized by wall properties was partly due to the description of the path that we followed to determine the
transformation of the digitized polylines into a raster, and two maps in this specific environment.
partly because the analysis is done along N–S terrace lines,
not always coincident with the direction of maximum DEM
slope. The solution adopted was to keep only the most
downhill cell of each terrace line to represent the wall. Over the study area, in the built up zones, the topographical
A second problem regarded some terrace lines where the database DB2000 (2003) at a 1:2,000 scale was available.
elevation of the base of the wall was higher than the base of In these zones, the contour lines of this database were used
its contiguous cell causing a particular geometry of the to obtain the final DEM, while to cover its gaps, a pho-
failure surface that the model was unable to manage, cal- togrammetric study was performed using the RFD evolu-
culating false instabilities. The problem was solved intro- tion software. The final DEM (horizontal resolution of
ducing a constraint according to which the base of the wall 1 m) is therefore the result of the merging of the DB2000
must always be at an elevation equal or lower than the one (interpolated to increase its resolution) and the pho-
of the uphill contiguous cell. togrammetric analysis. Figure 4 shows the hillshade of the
A brief description of how the critical acceleration final resulting DEM, whose elevation is ranging from 345
(Kacc) is calculated is given in the supplementary material to 750 m a.sl.
with the list of input parameters requested by the SARGLE
model. Soil depth map
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Fig. 5 Top, the two covariates used for co-kriging, a the soil depth class map and b the variogram model obtained from the training points.
Bottom, c the resulting soil depth map with resolution 1 m and d the validation of the map. From Camera et al. (2013)
Table 1 Soil, wall, and bedrock main properties: measured values from laboratory and field tests (in bracket) and values assumed for the
stability analysis
cd (kN/m3) n (-) hres (-) ks (m/s) c (kPa) / ()
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Once completely parameterized, the model was run Stability model results
with both a daily and a six-hour time step. Figure 6
shows the comparison between the calculated PGT levels Sensitivity analysis
and the one measured at the monitoring piezometer. The
best results obtained in the calibration procedure allow to In order to become more confident with how the SARGLE
well identify the highest peak of PGT occurred in the model works, a sensitivity analysis was performed on a
event. In general, calculated values show a slower de- limited portion of the slope. The effects of changes in three
crease of PGT levels compared to the measured one. The different parameters were evaluated.
six-hour time step gives a better performance as showed
I The variations of water content in soils (saturated
by the lower root mean squared error value (RMSE): this
water level and volumetric water content h in the
result is due to the best ability of the model in repro-
vadose zone) were studied. The water content h is
ducing the low PGT peaks before and after the major
allowed varying from residual to saturated condition
one. Both time steps show a general tendency to un-
(hres, hsat), while the water level can reach the ground
derestimate the PGT peaks with the exception of the first
level or be deeper than the soil depth, according to
one. This result can probably be explained by a not
the configuration scheme presented in Table 2,
perfect reproduction of antecedent soil moisture
where each hydrological configuration was named
conditions.
with an identification code (e.g., W0,…W10).
The event of October–November 2010 used for valida-
II The variations of the mechanical properties of soil
tion confirms the good quality of the results and the fact
and walls were considered, based on experimental
that (a) the calculated descending limbs have slower rate
measurements and local stability analyses deter-
with respect to the measured ones; (b) the six-hour time
mined in a previous work (Camera et al. 2014). Four
step performs better than the daily one. Nevertheless, this
main cases were considered: high wall cohesion
simulation shows that the major PGT peak is strongly
(cwall = 120 kPa) and variable wall friction angle
overestimated using daily time step, while it is fairly well
(45B /wall B55); low wall cohesion (cwall = 15
reproduced with six hourly inputs. For both time steps,
kPa) and variable /wall; high wall cohesion and
RMSE value is sufficiently low to give a normalized
variable soil cohesion (5 kPa B c B 20 kPa); and
RMSE of about 10 %. In addition, the model gives highly
high wall cohesion and variable / soil (26B /
satisfactory results in terms of water budget. At the end of
B34). Each mechanical properties configuration
the month, the difference between input and the sum of
used in the sensitivity analysis was named with an
output, and total storage is limited to a discrepancy around
identification code (e.g., MP-a, MP-b … or MP-m)
the 0.25 % of the involved volumes, indicating the respect
as detailed in Table 3.
of the water balance.
III Finally, the effects of differences in soil depth were
taken into account. An alternative soil depth map on
the small area used for the sensitivity analysis was
Table 2 Values of volumetric water content (h) and water level used derived based on dedicated geo-electrical surveys.
for the sensitivity analysis; hsat is saturated water content, hres is the Two different soil depth maps were then used, the
residual water content, while SDepth is the soil depth
one created with geostatistical method (gs—see
Configuration Hydrogeological variables section ‘‘Soil depth map’’) and the second derived
h Water level (m) from the geophysical interpretation (gp).
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Fig. 6 Comparison between calculated and measured groundwater levels for both the calibration and validation period and the two time step
durations. RMSE: Root Mean Squared Error
number of unstable terraces is particularly sensitive to the sensitive to changes in wall and soil cohesion, while much
wall mechanical parameters, mainly cohesion but friction less to friction angle variations. As expected, a reduction of
angle too (MP-d, MP-e, and MP-f configurations). On the the mechanical properties usually causes a drop of the Kacc
contrary, the results obtained with the geostatistical soil value, with two exceptions related to the decrease of the
depth map show a greater sensitivity to the soil cohesion friction angle of walls when their cohesion is high (MP-b
(MP-g configurations). and MP-c configurations). In these cases, the calculated
Considering the simulations done with the configuration small increase in Kacc is related to a combination of me-
MP-a as the standard of reference, the mean percentage chanical property values and geometry of the failure
variation of the critical acceleration (Kacc) over the area has surface.
been calculated for all the other MP-configurations con-
sidering the W5 state (Table 5), which is a stable case. Distributed slope stability analysis
Table 5 shows that the terraces react in the same way to the
same changes in the mechanical properties, whatever the The distributed slope stability analysis of the whole area
soil depth map used is. In detail, the model is particularly was performed using the properties presented in Table 1.
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Table 3 Soil and wall geotechnical properties used for the sensitivity Table 5 Results in terms of mean critical acceleration (Kacc) over the
analysis terraces used for the sensitivity analysis considering the soil depth
map obtained from geostatistical methods (gs) and geophysical
methods (gp)
Geotechnical variables
Configuration Critical acceleration Variation (%) of Kacc
Configuration c wall [kPa]
Kacc—gp Kacc—gs VarKacc—gp VarKacc—gs
MP-a 10 30 120 55
variable φ
High wall
cohesion,
MP-b 10 30 120 50
MP-c 10 30 120 45
MP-b 0.74 0.81 3.40 1.19
MP-c 0.73 0.80 1.79 0.60
MP-d 10 30 15 55
variable φ wall
cohesion
MP-m 10 34 120 55 All the results were obtained with the water configuration W5 (see
Table 2). VarKacc shows the variation (%) of the critical acceleration
c Values of cohesion and / friction angle when changing the mechanical properties of walls and soil with re-
spect to the configuration MP-a (see Table 3)
The choice of the mechanical properties was based on pressure distributions obtained through STARWARS
(a) the sensitivity of the conceptual model to the simulations.
geotechnical parameterization; (b) the results of the model The stability model was at first validated against no
calibration performed at the single terrace scale (Camera landslide occurrences (September 2010). The model was
et al. 2014); and (c) the need to test the model using run using as inputs the water level and volumetric water
recorded meteorological data. The selected properties content outputs calculated with the hydrological model
correspond to the almost average values of the measured (daily time step) for the month of September 2010 (Fig. 7a).
soil properties, and to low wall cohesion. It was considered Considering the small difference in the RMSE between the
that due to their building technique, dry-stone wall should water levels calculated with the daily and the six-hour time
have shear strength mainly controlled by friction angle step, the first one was selected because reproducing higher
rather than cohesion. This choice also enables a safety- water levels and therefore more safety oriented. For all
oriented approach. The stability model uses pore-water days, the stability model does not calculate any unstable
terrace, so adequately reproducing the stability situation
recorded on site. The results in terms of water level and
Table 4 Results of the sensitivity analysis in terms of unstable ter-
critical acceleration related to the 18th September 2010, the
races for the different configurations of water content and mechanical
properties. In each cell of the table, it is presented first the number of wettest day of the simulation period, are reported in Fig. 7b.
unstable terraces obtained with the geostatistical soil depth map, and Once demonstrated that the model is able to simulate the
secondly the result obtained with the geophysical soil depth map. The reaction of the slope to events not causing instability, the
configurations not reported gave always stable terraces
next step was to verify the capability of the model to
Geotechnical configuration Water content configuration predict areas that are predisposed to failure. It was decided
W6 W7 W8 W9 W10 to evaluate the slope reaction to a critical precipitation
event, i.e., that occurred between the 22nd and 23rd of May
MP-d 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–5 1983, which led to the triggering of two superficial land-
MP-e 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–1 0–8 slides on the slope uphill of Tresenda village. The
MP-f 0–0 0–0 0–0 0–2 0–8 volumetric water content and water level used as input for
MP-g 1–0 1–0 2–1 3–1 7–2 the stability analysis were calculated with STARWARS
Cases with one or more resulting unstable terraces for at least one of (daily time step), and to consider antecedent moisture
the two soil maps used as input are indicated in bold condition, the simulation was started at the end of March. It
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Fig. 7 STARWARS (water level) and SARGLE (critical acceleration—Kacc) results for the rainiest day of September 2010 (modified from
Camera et al. 2013)
was not possible to simulate a longer period because no Discussion and concluding remarks
precipitation data was available for the winter months.
The resulting map of the critical acceleration values Water level peaks represent the most critical hydro-
calculated by the SARGLE model allows to localize ter- geological occurrences affecting stability; therefore,
races in unstable conditions (red circles in Fig. 8) and those STARWARS was carefully tested against these events, and
which can be considered prone to instability (orange circles its output compared at different temporal scales. In par-
in Fig. 8). The unstable areas can be constituted by a single ticular, daily and six-hour time steps were used. Daily time
unstable terrace (at least a terrace line with Kacc B 0), steps seem more suited to model high PGT peaks, while
while areas prone to instability must have at least two six-hour time steps lead to a better reproduction of lower
contiguous terrace lines with 0 B Kacc B 0.15. Seven un- levels (and a better general performance due to the high
stable areas and fifteen areas close to instability are amounts of low values) while usually underestimating the
identified. peaks. With the six-hour time step, a certain amount of
It is interesting notice that most of these unstable or water cannot infiltrate and leave the slope as superficial
almost unstable areas are located upward and sideward the runoff in occasion of high intensity rainfalls. Using a daily
detachment zones of the soil slip/debris flow events oc- time step, rainfall is averaged on 24 h and so there is a sort
curred in 1983 and 2002. It was not expected that the of smoothing out of the peaks of precipitation and a higher
model could identify the exact triggering zone of the past amount of water can infiltrate, leading to higher water
landslide events, but to suggest its possible evolution; in levels in the ground. In the end, the tested hydrologic
fact, the input data used for modeling refer to the post- model showed to be a valid instrument to determine the
event geotechnical and geomorphological conditions; a development of perched water table within the entire slope.
new terrace-wall system was restored to mitigate the Regarding the stability analysis, the issues raised by this
damaged slope, and the previous situation cannot be re- study are related to the need of considering dry-stone wall
constructed. The hydrological-stability model has been in the model as well as reproduce the mechanisms of
able to identify the central-western part of the slope as the failure that they induce. The consequences are the neces-
more critical for the triggering of superficial landslides. sity of working at a very high horizontal resolution (1 m)
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