Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Erosion-induced landslide mobility is a prominent phenomenon in nature. However, this topic remains poorly understood, even though erosion greatly alters nearly every aspect of landslide mechanics, dynamics, run-out, mobility, deposition structure and the enormous destructive power carried by such catastrophic events. Here, I present a simple, elegant, and exact analytical model describing the kinematics of erosion-induced landslide mobility in terms of a newly constructed mobility controller containing essential forcing mechanisms in erosion. In contrast to the classical perspective, I formally prove that, irrespective of how large the erosion rate is, the erosion rate alone is not sufficient to determine enhanced or reduced mobility; mobility is also greatly regulated by the volume bulking rate, erosion drag or thrust, and flow depth. With this mechanical mobility controller, it is now possible to explain precisely when the mobility of an erodible landslide is enhanced or reduced. I demonstrate that, a mechanically valid, physically founded erosion model must be able to explain both the enhanced and reduced mobility of erosive landslides.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Pudasaini, Shiva P.
Institution: Technical University of Munich
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
OpenAlex ID: W7212086779