RAINFALL INDUCED LANDSLIDES IN KAGUUCHI

AREA, OOTY, THE NILGIRIS DISTRICT

A PROJECT REPORT
Submitted by

KARTHIKKUMAR K

01110111039

SARAVANAN S

01110111090

SATHISH KUMAR R

01110111091

SHANKAR PR

01110111096

In partial fulfilment for the award of the degree

of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
in
CIVIL ENGINEERING

BHARATHIDASAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

ANNA UNIVERSITY, TIRUCHIRAPPALLI-620024

ANNA UNIVERSITY: CHENNAI 600025

APRIL 2014
i

ANNA UNIVERSITY : CHENNAI 600 025

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE
Certified that this project report RAINFALL INDUCED LANDSLIDES IN
KAGUUCHI AREA, OOTY, THE NILGIRIS DISTRICT is the bonafide
work

of

KATHIKKUMAR

(01110111039),

SARAVANAN

(011101111090), SATHISH KUMAR R (01110111091), SHANKAR PR

(01110111096) who carried out the project work under my supervision.

Dr.R.ILANGOVAN

Mr.N.ILAVARASAN

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT

ASST.PROFESSOR

Department of Civil Engineering

Department of Civil Engineering

Bharathidasan Institute of Technology

Bharathidasan Institute of Technology

Anna university- Tiruchirappalli.

Anna university- Tiruchirappalli.

Examined on:

INTERNAL EXAMINER

EXTERNAL EXAMINER

ii

DECLARATION
We hereby declare that the work entitled RAINFALL INDUCED
LANDSLIDES

IN

KAGUUCHI

AREA,

OOTY,

THE

NILGIRIS

DISTRICT is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award

of the degree B.E. Civil Engineering, to Bharathidasan Institute of Technology,
Anna University , Tiruchirappalli, is a record of our own work carried out by us
during the academic year 2013 2014 under the supervision and guidance of
Assistant Professor, Mr.N.ILAVARASAN, Department of Civil Engineering,
Bharathidasan Institute of Technology, Anna University, Tiruchirappalli. The
extent and source of information are derived from the existing literature and
have been indicated through dissertation at the appropriate places. The matter
embodied in this work is original and has not been submitted for the award of
any other degree or diploma, either in this or any other University.

KARTHIKKUMAR M(01110111039)

SARAVANAN S(01110111090)

SATHISH KUMAR R(01110111091)

SHANKAR PR(01110111096)

I certify that the declaration made above by the candidates is true.

Mr.N.ILAVARASAN,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Civil Engineering,
Bharathidasan Institute of Technology,
Anna University,
Tiruchirappalli.

iii

ACNOWLEDGEMENT
We wish to thank our honourable HOD Dr. R. ILANGOVAN,
Department of Civil Engineering, Bharathidasan Institute of Technology, Anna
University, Tiruchirappalli, for providing us opportunity to do our project work.
We wish to thank Project coordinator Dr. G. VENKATESAN, Associate
professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Bharathidasan Institute of
Technology, Anna University, Tiruchirappalli for giving his golden guidance.
We express our hearty gratitude to our project guide Mr. N.
ILAVARASAN, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering,
Bharathidasan Institute of Technology, Anna University, Tiruchirappalli for
giving his valuable guidance.
We wish to express our gratitude to the officials and other staff members
of our department who rendered their help during the period of our project
work. Last but not least we wish to avail ourselves of this opportunity, express a
sense of gratitude and love to our friends and our beloved parents for their
manual support, strength, and help for everything.

iv

ABSTRACT
Kaguuchi is known as one of the most landslide prone areas in Nilgiri district,
Tamil Nadu. The area has been constantly hit by landslide hazards
since1990s.This project provides an insight in to the mechanism of rainfallinduced landslide in the Kaguuchi area. The rainfall patterns prior to the
occurrences of three selected case studies were first analyzed. The results
showed that daily rainfall could not be used for predicting the landslides in
Kaguuchi. The landslide predictions should incorporate the rainfalls of long
durations .i.e. 3 to 30 days prior to the landslides. The numerical simulation on
a selected case study demonstrated that both the matric suction and factor of
safety decreased steadily over time until they reached the lowest values on the
day of landslide occurrence. Based on 5 historical rainfall induced landslides
that had occurred in the area, three rainfall thresholds were developed as
attempts to predict the occurrence of rainfall-induced landslide. The rainfall
intensityduration threshold developed based on the local rainfall conditions
provided a reasonably good prediction to the landslide occurrence. The
cumulative 3-day versus 30-dayrainfall threshold chart was capable of giving
the most reliable prediction with the limiting threshold line for major landslide
yielded a reliability of 97.5%.
Keywords: Landslide Prediction, Arc-GIS, Nilgiri Platue, AMC.
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER NO.

TITLE

PAGE NO.

ABSTRACT

LIST OF TABLES

IX

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF SYMBOLS

1.

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

1.2 SCOPE OF STUDY

1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

2.

XI

1.5 ORIENTATION OF THESIS

1.6 PROJECT AIMS AND
OBJECTIVES
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 GENERAL

2.2 LANDSLIDE PROBLEM IN

4
5

NILGIRIS
2.3 FACTORS CAUSING LANDSLIDE

2.4 MECHANISM OF RAINFALL

INDUCED LANDSLIDES

vi

2.5 EMPRICAL RAINFALL THREHOLD

FOR PREDICTING LANDSLIDES

3.

STUDY AREA

15

3.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

15

3.2 SEASONAL CONDITION AND

RAINFALL

15

3.3 RAINFALL AND CLIMATE

16

3.4 GEOMORPHOLOGY AND SOIL TYPES 17

3.5 LANDSLIDE PROFILE

4.

17

METHODOLOGY

25

4.1 INTRODUCTION

25

4.2 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

25

4.3 DATA COLLECTION

27

4.4 RAINFALL PATTERN ANALYSIS

36

4.5 NUMERICAL SIMULATION

37

4.6 DEVELOPMENTOF RAINFALL

38

THRESHOLD CHART

5.

4.7 VERIFICATION

38

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

39

5.1 INTRODUCTION

39

5.2 OVERVIEW OF THE LANDSLIDE

CASES IN KAGUUCHI

vii

39

5.3 IMPORTANCE OF CORRELATING

LANDSLIDE OCCURENCES IN
KAGUUCHI WITH RAINFALL

40

5.4 GEOLOGICAL PROFILE AND SOIL

PROPERTIES

42

5.5 RAINFALL PATTERN ANALYSIS FOR

SELECTED CASE STUDIES

43

5.6 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A

SELECTED CASE STUDY

45

5.7 EMPRICAL RAINFALL THRESHOLD

CHART

6.

46

5.8 DISCUSSIONS

49

CONCLUSION

52

REFERENCES

53

viii

LIST OF TABLES
TABLE

TITLE

PAGE NO

4.1

Land Use capability classification map

31

4.2

Assessment of Surface Runoff Potential

32

4.3

Month-wise cumulative runoff for 2008

33

4.4

Month-wise cumulative runoff for 2009

34

4.5

Major Historical Landslides in Nilgiris

36

4.6

Soil properties data of Kaguuchi slope

37

5.1

Typical Soil Properties at Kaguuchi

42

5.2

Typical infiltration rate of different type

of soil at Kaguuchi

5.3

43

Verification results of the proposed

Cumulative 3-day Rainfall-

Cumulative

30-day Rainfall (E3-E30) Threshold chart

ix

49

LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE
1.1

TITLE

PAGE NO

Location of Kaguuchi Area, Ooty,

The Nilgiris
2.1

An Overview of Mechanism of Rainfall-

Induced Landslide
2.2

Cumulative 3-day and previous 15-day Rainfall

11

Threshold (CT) (Chleborad, 2000, 2003).

3.1

Land Use Pattern map of Kaguuchi Village

21

3.2

Soil Map of Kaguuchi Village

22

3.3

Geology Map of Kaguuchi Village

23

3.4

Geomorphology Map of Kaguuchi Village

24

4.1

Research Framework Methodology

26

4.2

Location of nearest Rain Gauge Station

27

for Study Area

4.3

Monthly Runoff for 2008

35

4.4

Monthly Runoff for 2009

35

5.1

Daily Rainfall Chart for Oct 2008

40

5.2

Correlation between Monthly and Moving

41

average Rainfall for 2008

5.3

Annual Rainfall over Kaguuchi area from

44

2001-2010
5.4

Changes of Factor of Safety(FOS) Over Time

46

5.5

Cummulative 30 day Rainfall Chart

x

48

LIST OF SYMBOLS/ABBREVIATIONS
(E30N)
(E3 E30)

Cumulative30-dayrainfall Number of rainy day threshold chart

Cumulative3-dayrainfallCumulative30-dayrainfallthreshold
chart

Duration of the rainfall event (h)

Empirical parameter (typical valuerangebetween0.8and0.9)

FOS

Factor of Safety

(ID)3

IntensityDurationof3-dayrainfall threshold chart

MAP

Mean Annual Precipitation

AMC

Antecedent Moisture Condition

Rainfall intensity, mm/h

Angle of frictional resistance

Effective cohesion

'

Effective normal stress

'

Effective friction angle

Intercept

Ksat

Saturated permeability

Shear stress at failure

Slope of the power lowcurve

Soil unit weight

Suction stress

xi

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