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Sensitive clays, mostly found in Eastern Canada and Scandinavia, are prone to various types of landslides; among them are flowslides that may affect hectares of land. Debris from those slides has high mobility, with runout distances that may extend over hundreds of meters in relatively flat and non-channelized terrain. Most studies on the mobility use apparent rheological properties to back-calculate the runout behavior of these landslides. This works well for back-analyses of landslides but is of little help in a context of hazard mapping, where prospective analysis of future landslides is necessary. In this study, a new factor, using the destructuration index concept, is introduced to estimate the remaining energy available as kinetic energy for runout after the remolding of the sensitive clay: the energy reduction factor (FER). Using the FER allows the use of real rheological data acquired with a rheometer to analyze the post-failure behavior of a flowslide in sensitive clays. This method is applied on a sensitive clay landslide which took place in Quebec and where rheological and geotechnical data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A railroad crosses the coastal Gascons rockslide, in Quebec, Canada. This study improves the understanding of the rockslide's failure mechanism and post-failure behaviour responsible for the deformation in the railroad. The slide is an asymmetrical wedge failure of 410,000 m, in rocks made up of centimetre-scale beds of nodular calcilutite alternating with sandstones and limestone. The post-failure stage of the rockslide is characterised by continuous movement of blocks with speeds ranging from 6 to 110 mm/year. The main water table is just below the sliding surface, but precipitation and snowmelt can raise it above the sliding surface in the upper part of the slide. We propose a model for the rockslide, its failure mechanism, geometry and hydrogeology to provide a baseline for interpreting the near-real-time data collected since 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early warning systems (EWSs) rely on the capacity to forecast a dangerous event with a certain amount of advance by defining warning criteria on which the safety of the population will depend. Monitoring of landslides is facilitated by new technologies, decreasing prices and easier data processing. At the same time, predicting the onset of a rapid failure or the sudden transition from slow to rapid failure and subsequent collapse, and its consequences is challenging for scientists that must deal with uncertainties and have limited tools to do so. Furthermore, EWS and warning criteria are becoming more and more a subject of concern between technical experts, researchers, stakeholders and decision makers responsible for the activation, enforcement and approval of civil protection actions. EWSs imply also a sharing of responsibilities which is often averted by technical staff, managers of technical offices and governing institutions. We organized the First International Workshop on Warning Criteria for Active Slides (IWWCAS) to promote sharing and networking among members from specialized institutions and relevant experts of EWS. In this paper, we summarize the event to stimulate discussion and collaboration between organizations dealing with the complex task of managing hazard and risk related to active slides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]