Soil Liquefaction Susceptibility Assessment of Mozdok City (North Ossetia, Russia)

Abstract

Urban areas lying in the alluvial soil are usually prone to a threat of liquefaction even during moderate earthquakes. Liquefaction is the measure of vulnerability of saturated sediment to thickening (compaction) during earthquake and thus to pore water pressures generation (formation) sufficient to cause possible ground instability or failure. The buildings which are constructed over the liquefiable soil are more vulnerable to the vibrations of a potential earthquake. The territory of the North Caucasus is characterized by high density of population and a high level of seismic hazard. Liquefied soils are also presented here. But the earthquake effect depends on the water table and level of seismic loadings. Despite the absence of historical data on liquefaction on this territory, there are soil conditions in new regions with a possible liquefaction behavior during strong earthquakes. Mozdok city with seismic potential M=5.0 for Mozdok Eastern seismic fault is considered in the paper. The major part of the Mozdok city covered by the Recent Alluvial soil with a shallow water table, which is more vulnerable during earthquake shaking and quiet enough to trigger liquefaction. In this regard, a study carried out to understand the liquefaction susceptibility of soil in the cities using geotechnical data. A liquefaction susceptibility assessment method was adopted for Mozdok city. Seismic refraction survey is widely used in Russia rather than SPT, and calculations were made on the basis size of shear velocity Vs. As a result, about 90% of the territory of Mozdok city is liquefiable. The present study can be an eye-opening for urban planners and decisionmakers and emergency responders for future developmental planning activity.

GIS based urban social vulnerability assessment for liquefaction susceptible areas: a case study for greater Chennai, India

“…Soil liquefaction has historically been observed in moderate and strong earthquakes (Ambraseys 1988). Globally many research works have been carried out on seismic hazard and liquefaction assessment based on geological and geomorphological settings of an area (Ganapathy et al , 2019Ganapathy and Rajawat 2012;El May et al 2010;Iwasaki et al 1982;Wakamatsu 1992;Vipin et al 2009;Obermeier 1989). The present study was carried using the data published by the respective organizations, data published on journal papers and open source data.…”

Partitioning around medoids approach application for computation of regional flood and landslide quantiles

“…One of the main factors assumed is high rainfall preceding the mentioned catastrophic events. Water saturation is critical in such processes as liquefaction phenomenon [2,3]. In August 2018 a large number of people died (more than 400 people) as a result of landslides and downpours in the south and west of India.…”