Ikuo Towhata - Böcker

The coauthors of this book draw on their decades of research and innovation to describe an inexpensive and easy-to-interpret early warning system for rainfall-induced landslides. This system will enable readers to identify slope collapses before they happen and act to prevent economic and human losses.Readers will gain an understanding of existing slope monitoring technologies and their applications, advantages and disadvantages. They will also understand the need for early warning systems for rapid landslides caused by heavy rainfall. Because such landslides are increasing in frequency due to climate-change-related increase in short-term but heavy rainfall, the authors first review the current context before explaining the importance of field monitoring for their continuing professional career development. The authors describe their technology, which is based on an inexpensive tiltmeter sensor and can detect landslides several hours prior to their onset. It is important that the authors present ample cases in which their technology could foresee imminent landslides. This description is supported by in-depth comparisons with other methodologies, field tests and case studies. Finally, existing problems are introduced and future research directions are presented. This information will enable readers to implement their own systems to identify slopes at imminent risk of collapse following rainfall events so that they may take appropriate action to prevent economic damage and loss of life.Slope Monitoring for Early Warning of Rapid Landslides: Mitigating Rainfall-Induced Disasters is an indispensable guide for practitioners in both public and private sectors who are responsible for the implementation of slope monitoring and landslide early warning systems. Postgraduate students who specialize in the mitigation of natural disasters and the effects of global climate change will also benefit from the discussions of differing available technologies and case studies.

Soil Liquefaction during Recent Large-Scale Earthquakes contains selected papers presented at the New Zealand – Japan Workshop on Soil Liquefaction during Recent Large-Scale Earthquakes (Auckland, New Zealand, 2-3 December 2013). The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand and the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake in Japan have caused significant damage to many residential houses due to varying degrees of soil liquefaction over a very wide extent of urban areas unseen in past destructive earthquakes. While soil liquefaction occurred in naturally-sedimented soil formations in Christchurch, most of the areas which liquefied in Tokyo Bay area were reclaimed soil and artificial fill deposits, thus providing researchers with a wide range of soil deposits to characterize soil and site response to large-scale earthquake shaking.Although these earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan caused extensive damage to life and property, they also serve as an opportunity to understand better the response of soil and building foundations to such large-scale earthquake shaking. With the wealth of information obtained in the aftermath of both earthquakes, information-sharing and knowledge-exchange are vital in arriving at liquefaction-proof urban areas in both countries. Data regarding the observed damage to residential houses as well as the lessons learnt are essential for the rebuilding efforts in the coming years and in mitigating buildings located in regions with high liquefaction potential.As part of the MBIE-JSPS collaborative research programme, the Geomechanics Group of the University of Auckland and the Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory of the University of Tokyo co-hosted the workshop to bring together researchers to review the findings and observations from recent large-scale earthquakes related to soil liquefaction and discuss possible measures to mitigate future damage. Soil Liquefaction during Recent Large-Scale Earthquakes will be of great interest to researchers, academics, industry practitioners and other professionals involved in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Foundation Engineering, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics.

This book is a product of my long-term activities in both education and research. As for education, I was told for the first time in 1985 to teach soil dynamics in Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.

This book is a product of my long-term activities in both education and research. Its publication was made possible by a financial support supplied by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. As for education, I was told for the first time in 1985 to teach soil dynamics in Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. I collected experimental and field findings from many publications and made a small series of handouts. Since computer technologies were not well advanced in mid 80s, the handouts were products of cut-and-paste in the physical sense. Many pages were even handwritten. Afterwards, I started to teach the same subject in 1995 at University of Tokyo. Since then I have added more information from field investigation and laboratory tests as well as analyses. It has become possible to put all in an electronic media that makes teaching easier. Readers can find that this book includes Japanese writing among English text. This is because I use this text for teaching in Tokyo. The main aim of this book is a collection of data which is useful in understanding the state-of-art technology and its application to new topics. Understanding the fundamental issues is important because practice makes use of many assumptions, hypotheses, and way of thinking. It has been my policy to show reasons why practice employs those ideas by showing experimental and field backgrounds. This idea does not change even today.

This book is the result of an elaborate project initiated by the Joint Technical Committee (JTC-1) of 1) the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, 2) the International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment, 3) the International Society for Rock Mechanics, and 4) the International Geotextile Society, with the focus on natural slopes and landslides. The framework of the book sets out the steps, based on recent disaster experiences in the twenty-first century, leading to the assessment of earthquake-induced landslide hazards. It contains: 1) important cases of landslides triggered by earthquakes around the world; 2) investigation into the characteristics of ground motion site response; 3) methods to determine landslide susceptibility and triggering thresholds and their comparative study; and 4) commentary on the production of earthquake-induced landslide hazard maps. All the contents are the result of the latest researchon related areas. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, designers, consultants, academicians, government officials, and all others who are involved in the mitigation of coseismic landslides. The book contributes toward the development of a new chapter in disaster prevention and mitigation of landslides induced by earthquakes.