Evaluating pedogenesis and soil Atterberg limits for inducing landslides in the Western Ghats, Idukki District of Kerala, South India

M. Lalitha (), K. S. Anil Kumar (), K. M. Nair (), S. Dharumarajan (), Arti Koyal (), Shivanand Khandal (), S. Kaliraj () and Rajendra Hegde ()
Additional contact information
M. Lalitha: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre
K. S. Anil Kumar: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre
K. M. Nair: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre
S. Dharumarajan: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre
Arti Koyal: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre
Shivanand Khandal: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre
S. Kaliraj: National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), Govt. of India
Rajendra Hegde: ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Regional Centre

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2021, vol. 106, issue 1, No 20, 487-507

Abstract: Abstract In the Western Ghats of India, the soil properties, particularly Atterberg limits, are of relevance to the landslides. Pedogenic processes in the Western Ghats and plateaus on it are regulated by parent materials, relief (topography), organisms, climate, and time. In this study, the five major soils found within the mid-part of the Western Ghats in the Idukki district of Kerala, Southern India was analyzed for elucidating physical, chemical, and geotechnical properties (Atterberg limits) on landslides potentiality or slope failure processes. The result reveals that the highly weathered lateritic soils noted with lower KCl pH (3.6–4.6), low-cation exchange capacity (3.1 to 19.6 cmol( +) kg−1), low-effective cation exchange capacity (0.8 to 10.7 cmol( +) kg−1) and a negative ∆pH value indicate the presence of variable charge minerals such as amorphous sesquioxides. The variable ranking of random forest revealed that the soil Atterberg limits were significantly influenced by Citrate Bicarbonate Dithionite (CBD) iron, sand fractions, and organic carbon. The layer of porous sandy soils showed lower Atterberg limits due to accentuate with clay matter, whereas the illuvial layer (Bt) have noted as higher Atterberg limits that lead to potentially collapsing gullies or triggering mass movement during heavy rainfall followed by intensive runoff due to instability of soil mass within proxy of the steeply sloping surface. Soil geotechnical properties such as liquid limit, plastic limit, and plasticity index are the main characteristics that decide the slope stability and failure in various parts of the study area, whereas the soil profile morphometry has significantly associated with the occurrence of landslides with the plastic limit value between 28.01 and 40.48. It was noticed that the failed slopes have a higher value than stable slopes along with the hill-range topography, with soil particle sizes range of silt and clay (8.79 to 36.17 and 22.31 to 57.74%) with the measurement of liquid limit (40.05 to 68.4), plastic limit (24.2 to 43.94), and plasticity index (7.81 to 24.8). This indicates that the pedogenesis of the weathering profile of soils have significantly influenced the Atterberg limits that triggering slope failure or landslides along the gullies and weathered lateritic uplands.

Keywords: Soil properties; Pedogenic processes; Atterberg limits; Landslides; Western Ghats (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-020-04472-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:106:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-020-04472-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-020-04472-0

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().