LADY - Landslide dam properties and stability

• Applicant: Anja Dufresne, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Geology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519290474

Blocking of rivers by landslides is a common phenomenon around the world with hundreds of landslide dams catalogued in regional or worldwide inventories. Some dams maintain stable lakes for many thousands of years, whereas others fail within minutes to a few months after formation. Much is still unknown about the exact failure processes, and understanding of dam performance varies greatly among disciplines. With this project, we aim to bridge this gap by bringing together expertise from landslide sedimentology, dam engineering, hydrology, and numerical analyses. Detailed mapping of the dam will be combined with dam-engineering approaches, evaluation of the lake’s water balance, numerical simulation of dam performance, and testing of a new hypothesis that may synergize the hydraulic criteria responsible for overtopping and piping failure into one process. With this holistic, multi-disciplinary approach, we expect to deepen the current knowledge of dam failure processes and make progress in our understanding of dam failure.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China, Netherlands, Romania
• Co-Investigators: Professor Florian Amann, Ph.D.; Pooya Hamdi, Ph.D.
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Thom Bogaard; Professorin Dr. Xuanmei Fan; Dr. Markus Hrachowitz; Dr. Alin Mihu-Pintilie