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Spatio-temporal analysis of rockfall pre-failure deformation using Terrestrial LiDAR

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Abstract

We present a long-term spatio-temporal analysis of rock slope evolution using a Terrestrial LiDAR aiming to improve our understanding of the link between pre-failure deformation and the spatial prediction of rockfalls. We monitored the pilot study area located at the Puigcercós cliff (Catalonia, Spain) over a period of 1,705 days and detected the deformation of nine different cliff regions together with a high rockfall activity. An exact match was observed between the progressively deformed areas and the regions recently affected by three of the highest magnitude rockfall events, demonstrating a causal relationship between pre-failure deformation and rockfall occurrence. These findings allowed us to make a forward spatial prediction of future failures, hypothesizing a high probability of failure in the six remaining regions. We observed an exponential acceleration of the deformation close to failure, in accordance with tertiary creep theory. However, the temporal analysis of the deformed areas showed a complex and variable behavior, so no exact prediction of the date of failure can yet be made. Our findings have broadened our understanding of the pre-failure behavior of rockfalls and have clear implications for the future implementation of early warning systems.

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Acknowledgements

The present study was partially supported by the NUTESA (CGL2010-18609, MICINN and FEDER Founds), RISKNAT group (2009GR/520) and Swiss National Foundation (SNF 138015 and 144040) projects. The first author was funded by the DIUE Commission for Universities and Research of the Catalan government through a pre-doctoral grant (FI-DGR2011) and a pre-doctoral research stay grant at Lausanne University (Switzerland; BE-DGR2011). We also acknowledge the technical support of D. Garcia-Sellés in the fieldwork campaigns and of master’s students J. Blanchard, X. Rodriguez and F. Sanchez in data acquisition and alignment during the early stages of the research. We sincerely thank the editor and the three reviewers for their helpful and critical revision of the manuscript.

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  1. RISKNAT Group, GEOMODELS, Departament de Geodinàmica i Geofísica, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona, C/ Martí i Franqués, s/n, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Manuel Jesús Royán, Antonio Abellán, Joan Manuel Vilaplana & Jaume Calvet

  2. Centre de Recherches en Environnement Terrestre (CRET), Faculté des Géosciences et de l’Environnement, Université de Lausanne, Géopolis (3129), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Antonio Abellán & Michel Jaboyedoff

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  1. Manuel Jesús Royán
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  2. Antonio Abellán
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Correspondence to Manuel Jesús Royán.

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Royán, M.J., Abellán, A., Jaboyedoff, M. et al. Spatio-temporal analysis of rockfall pre-failure deformation using Terrestrial LiDAR. Landslides 11, 697–709 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-013-0442-0

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