Environmental influences on landslide activity : Almora Bypass, Kumaun Lesser Himalaya

ABSTRACT

Landslides are self-organizing and self-referenced systems. The conditions which lead to their emergence along Himalayan highways are not the same as those which their subsequent evolution. Landslides originate at sites which differ from average conditions by having significantly higher, steeper roadcuts, carved into steeper hillsides, with more finely bedded but less steeply dipping rocks, and fewer trees upslope. The system exhibits independence (autopoiesis) from its environment. Additionally, landslides dominated by rock-mechanical processes tend to produce lower angle outfalls from higher, north-facting, roadcuts than those dominated by soil-mechanical processes which are associated with greater dephts of below-soil regolith. However, the outfall volumes produced by the landdslides of different type are similar. These findings are generated from statistical (correlation/T-test/stepwise discriminant) analyses of data produced by a field survery of average environmental conditions, and the morphometry and environmental contexts of 88 landslides, on 7.6 km of the Almora Bypass (AU)