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Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Hazards and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (13 November 2023) | Viewed by 7925

Special Issue Editors

School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Interests: geological hazards; landslide; soil–rock mixture; discrete element method; microscale soil mechanics
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Interests: geological hazards; slope stability analysis; landslide; forecasting; early warming; risk analysis
School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China
Interests: slope stabilization; ground improvement; geotechnical disaster detection
School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Interests: risk assessment; hazards mechanism; protection and control of earthquake landslide hazards

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A geological hazard is defined as a naturally occurring or human-made geological phenomenon capable of causing the loss of life and property. With active tectonic movement, ever-changing climate, and increased urbanization, the threats of geological hazards to humans are increasing. Common geological hazards include landslides, rock falls, debris flow, avalanches, earthquakes, ground fissures, ground subsidence, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, water inrush/mud inrush/rockburst in mines or tunnels, etc.

Failure to properly recognize and address the geological hazards in land-use planning and project design is often costly, resulting in additional construction or future maintenance costs, financial losses, and human casualties. For example, in 2018, two successive slope failure events of the Baige landslide (Tibet, China) blocked the Jinsha River, resulting in direct economic losses of 1.07 billion dollars owing to the landslide barrier lake and the dam-breach flood. The key to preventing and mitigating these threats is to comprehensively consider and analyze the potential hazards and the secondary hazards or hazard chains that may form after a disaster occurs. Therefore, reliable risk analysis methods are required to assess the risk of various geological hazards and subsequently guide the implementation of protection engineering and other remedial measures. Moreover, in the face of increasingly complex geological hazard problems, new protection technologies and strategies are urgently needed.

This Special Issue aims to promote research on risk analysis methods and protection engineering of various geological hazards to reduce the losses caused by geological disasters to engineering safety, social development, and human safety.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Case studies of various geological hazards;
  • Field monitoring, experimental studies, and numerical simulations of geological hazards;
  • New risk analysis methods;
  • Susceptibility, hazard, and risk assessment for geological hazards;
  • Treatment techniques and engineering materials in protection engineering;
  • Geotechnical and structure reliability analysis;
  • Forecasting and early warning for geological hazards;
  • Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards.

We look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Gong Jian
Dr. Minxi Chen
Dr. Xinyu Ye
Dr. Dejian Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • geological hazard
  • risk analysis method
  • protection engineering
  • forecasting

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 4464 KiB  
Article
Bibliometric Analysis of Research Progress and Perspectives of Deep Underground Rockburst Using Knowledge Mapping Method
by Luxiang Wang, Zhende Zhu, Junyu Wu and Xinrui Zhao
Sustainability 2023, 15(18), 13578; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151813578 - 11 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 761
Abstract
In order to ensure the successful construction and stable operation of deep engineering projects, significant progress has been made in researching deep underground rockburst issues from various perspectives. However, there have been few systematic analyses of the overall research status of deep rockburst [...] Read more.
In order to ensure the successful construction and stable operation of deep engineering projects, significant progress has been made in researching deep underground rockburst issues from various perspectives. However, there have been few systematic analyses of the overall research status of deep rockburst to date. In this study, a bibliometric approach using CiteSpace software (version 6.2.R3) was employed to visualize and analyze knowledge maps of 353 research articles on deep rockburst collected from the Web of Science core database from 1996 to 2022. The results show that the number of publications experienced exponential growth after an initial stage of budding and peaked in 2016. In terms of collaboration, China plays an absolute central role. The top three highly cited journals were the International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, and Tunneling and Underground Space Technology. In the keyword co-occurrence analysis, the keyword “prediction” had the highest frequency of occurrence in the past two decades, indicating it as the major research focus in deep rockburst studies. The keyword co-occurrence clustering analysis revealed eight clusters, including conventional criteria, acoustic emission, geology, seismic velocity tomography, dynamic disturbance, and others, representing the primary research topics. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the current research progress and development trends of deep underground rockburst, helping to understand the key areas of focus in this field and providing potential prospects for future investigations for researchers and practitioners. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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18 pages, 4898 KiB  
Article
Multi-Source Monitoring Data Fusion Comprehensive Evaluation Method for the Safety Status of Deep Foundation Pit
by Bo Wu, Yu Wei, Guowang Meng, Shixiang Xu, Qinshan Wang, Dianbin Cao and Chenxu Zhao
Sustainability 2023, 15(15), 11809; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511809 - 01 Aug 2023
Viewed by 893
Abstract
Construction of the deep foundation pit (DFP) in subway stations is fraught with significant uncertainties, which may cause project delays due to discrepancies between single-indicator monitoring warning information and actual conditions at the site. Therefore, this article proposes a safety assessment method for [...] Read more.
Construction of the deep foundation pit (DFP) in subway stations is fraught with significant uncertainties, which may cause project delays due to discrepancies between single-indicator monitoring warning information and actual conditions at the site. Therefore, this article proposes a safety assessment method for DFP based on the Game-Cloud Model. An entirely quantitative assessment index system is established with on-site monitoring projects according to the design safety classification of DFP. Considering the one-sidedness of using a single method to determine the weights of assessment indices, game theory is introduced to calibrate the subjective and objective weights determined by the grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (GDEMATEL) and the entropy method, respectively. Next, we use the forward cloud generator of the cloud model (CM) to generate the safety level membership function of the evaluation indicators. Finally, we quantitatively calculate the synthetic safety level of DFP using the comprehensive evaluation approach. A 19-day dynamic assessment was conducted on the actual engineering project by the proposed method. The results indicated that the synthetic safety level of the assessed area ranged between grades Ⅰ and Ⅱ, corresponding to Negligible and Acceptable in the acceptance criteria. Compared with the single-indicator monitoring warning results, it was more in line with on-site observation, which verified its reliability and practicality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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20 pages, 20566 KiB  
Article
Improving the Accuracy of Regional Engineering Disturbance Disaster Susceptibility by Optimizing Weight Calculation Methods—A Case Study in the Himalayan Area, China
by Yewei Song, Jie Guo, Fengshan Ma, Jia Liu and Guang Li
Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10669; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310669 - 06 Jul 2023
Viewed by 610
Abstract
The information value method is widely used in predicting the susceptibility of geological disasters. However, most susceptibility evaluation models assume that the weight of each influencing factor is equal, which is inconsistent with the actual situation. Therefore, this paper studies the optimization effect [...] Read more.
The information value method is widely used in predicting the susceptibility of geological disasters. However, most susceptibility evaluation models assume that the weight of each influencing factor is equal, which is inconsistent with the actual situation. Therefore, this paper studies the optimization effect of weight calculation method on the information value model. Engineering disturbance disasters are developing in the Himalayan alpine valley in southeastern Tibet. First of all, this paper takes this as the research object and builds a database of engineering disturbance disasters in southeast Tibet through long-term on-site investigation. Then, the relationship between the influencing factors such as slope, aspect, relief, elevation, engineering geological rock formation, rainfall, temperature, and seismic peak acceleration and the distribution of engineering disturbance disasters is analyzed. Finally, the principal component analysis method and logistic regression method are employed to calculate the weight coefficients. Moreover, the susceptibility of engineering disturbance disasters is predicted using the information value model (IV-Only), as well as two weighted information value models (PCA-IV and LR-IV). In addition, the accuracy of these three susceptibility evaluation models is assessed based on two evaluation indexes. The results show that: compared with the equal weight method and the principal component analysis method, the logistic regression method has the highest accuracy. According to the weight coefficient, the control factors of engineering disturbance disasters in the Himalayan alpine canyon area are determined to be slope, aspect, rainfall, and elevation. The research results provide a reference method for the optimization of susceptibility evaluation model. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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17 pages, 18009 KiB  
Article
Bearing Capacity Analysis of the Weak Basement, Progressive Destruction Analysis, and Evaluation of the Dump on an Inclined Strip Section Using the Upper-Limit Method: A Case Study in an Anonymous Open-Cast Coal Mine
by Yan Hong, Han Du and Mingxi Chen
Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10240; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310240 - 28 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 995
Abstract
Due to terrain and transportation constraints, some open cast mines have to choose a weak basement as their tailings dumping grounds. Therefore, ensuring the bearing capacity and slope stability of dumping grounds on the weak basement is of great significance for the production [...] Read more.
Due to terrain and transportation constraints, some open cast mines have to choose a weak basement as their tailings dumping grounds. Therefore, ensuring the bearing capacity and slope stability of dumping grounds on the weak basement is of great significance for the production capacity and economic benefits of open cast mining. To ensure the safety of surrounding facilities and the normal production of open cast mines, the bearing capacity of the dumping ground of a certain open cast mine was calculated using the oblique strip method and verified by numerical simulation. On this basis, the potential failure mode of the dumping ground base was analyzed, and the ultimate bearing capacity of the dumping ground under current conditions was calculated. The results are as follows: (1) The ultimate bearing capacity of the current dumping ground base is 3781 kPa, and the failure mode of the base is overall shear sliding along the base of the dumping ground. (2) When the slope foot increases from 12° to 18°, the stability coefficient and critical bearing capacity coefficient of the slope base decrease by about 21% and 46%, respectively. The slope angle has a greater impact on the bearing capacity of the base, and the height of the slope body has a relatively small impact, with almost no width effect. (3) Compared with the classic Terzaghi method and Prandtl method, the ultimate bearing capacity of the dumping ground base determined using the oblique strip method proposed in this paper is closer to the numerical simulation results, with an error of no more than 5%, a consistent critical sliding surface, and results that are relatively consistent with the engineering practice monitoring of the surface uplift part. The calculation results of the bearing capacity of the weak basement of open cast mine dumping grounds using the oblique strip method are reliable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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16 pages, 1930 KiB  
Article
Rebound Calculation for Deep Excavation in Soft Soil Based on Rebound-Recompression Method
by Zhuofeng Li, Yiwei Zhu, Chenggong Xu, Kaiwen Yang, Xiaobing Xu and Huajian Fang
Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10019; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310019 - 25 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1444
Abstract
The excavation-induced stress relief and inward movement of the retaining wall will result in soil rebound deformation at the bottom of the excavation, adversely affecting nearby existing tunnels and foundation piles. Various existing methods for calculating the excavation rebound rely on rebound parameters [...] Read more.
The excavation-induced stress relief and inward movement of the retaining wall will result in soil rebound deformation at the bottom of the excavation, adversely affecting nearby existing tunnels and foundation piles. Various existing methods for calculating the excavation rebound rely on rebound parameters and void ratio obtained from laboratory tests, without considering the effects of sampling, specimen preparation and laboratory procedures on the rebound parameters. As a result, a novel method is proposed in this article for calculating excavation rebound based on rebound-recompression method (RRM). This method first modifies initial void ratio (e0) and laboratory recompression index (CLR) used in traditional methods (TM) for calculation, based on field rebound and recompression curve proposed by the RRM, to in situ void ratio (ev0) and field recompression index (CFR). Then, the final rebound at the bottom of the excavation is calculated using a layered summation method. In addition, through two engineering examples, the proposed method is compared with existing calculation methods and measurements, demonstrating that this method is easy of calculate, yields reliable results, and can accurately predict the final soil rebound at the bottom of the excavation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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21 pages, 18983 KiB  
Article
Prediction of the Tunnel Collapse Probability Using SVR-Based Monte Carlo Simulation: A Case Study
by Guowang Meng, Hongle Li, Bo Wu, Guangyang Liu, Huazheng Ye and Yiming Zuo
Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7098; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097098 - 24 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1431
Abstract
Collapse is one of the most significant geological hazards in mountain tunnel construction, and it is crucial to accurately predict the collapse probability. By introducing the reliability theory, this paper proposes a calculation method for the collapse probability in mountain tunnel construction based [...] Read more.
Collapse is one of the most significant geological hazards in mountain tunnel construction, and it is crucial to accurately predict the collapse probability. By introducing the reliability theory, this paper proposes a calculation method for the collapse probability in mountain tunnel construction based on numerical simulation, support vector regression (SVR), and the Monte Carlo (MC) method. Taking the Jinzhupa Tunnel Project in Fujian Province as a case study, three-dimensional models were constructed, and the safety factors of the surrounding rock were determined using the strength reduction method. By defining the shear strength parameters of the surrounding rock as random variables, the problem was formulated as a reliability model, and the safety factor was chosen as the reliability index. To increase computational efficiency, the SVR model was trained to replace numerical simulations, and the MC method was adopted to calculate the probability of collapse. The results showed that the cause of the collapse was the change in the excavation method and the very late installation of supports. The feasibility and reliability of the proposed method have been verified, indicating that the method can be used to predict the probability of collapse in a practical risk assessment of mountain tunnel construction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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21 pages, 7609 KiB  
Article
Study on Radial and Longitudinal Zoning of Insulation Layer in Alpine Tunnel under Wind Field
by Zhiqiang Li, Jinpeng Zhao, Tong Liu and Lulu Liu
Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 6010; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15076010 - 30 Mar 2023
Viewed by 889
Abstract
The unreasonable setting of thermal insulation layer in high cold tunnels not only increases the maintenance cost of tunnels, but also weakens the anti-freezing and cold resistance of the tunnels. In order to optimize the setting of thermal insulation layer in an Alpine [...] Read more.
The unreasonable setting of thermal insulation layer in high cold tunnels not only increases the maintenance cost of tunnels, but also weakens the anti-freezing and cold resistance of the tunnels. In order to optimize the setting of thermal insulation layer in an Alpine tunnel, relying on Dabanshan tunnel in Qinghai Province, three schemes of radial and longitudinal thermal insulation region of thermal insulation layer were adopted, and the temperature field of the surrounding rock was numerically analyzed. The results show that the uneven region scheme of 9 cm-8 cm-7 cm and 10 cm-9 cm-8 cm insulation layer can effectively reduce the freezing area of the lining and the surrounding rock, the freezing region at the tunnel entrance is significantly reduced, and there is no lining freezing region within the depth of 30–750 M. The research results can provide guidance for the partition wall setting of radial and longitudinal insulation layers of Alpine tunnels. In addition, it has considerable economic advantages for the reduction in engineering construction costs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Analysis and Protection Engineering of Geological Hazards)
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