Assessment of the physical vulnerability of buildings affected by slow-moving landslides

Chen, Qin; Chen, Lixia; Gui, Lei; Yin, Kunlong; Shrestha, Dhruba Pikha; Du, Juan; Cao, Xuelian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2547-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2547-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2547-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 9

Research article

|

29 Sep 2020

Research article |

| 29 Sep 2020

Assessment of the physical vulnerability of buildings affected by slow-moving landslides

Qin Chen, Lixia Chen, Lei Gui, Kunlong Yin, Dhruba Pikha Shrestha, Juan Du, and Xuelian Cao

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Final revised paper (published on 29 Sep 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 16 Oct 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review_Comments to the Authors', Anonymous Referee #1, 28 Feb 2020
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewer 1', Lixia Chen, 23 Mar 2020
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Assessment of the physical vulnerability of buildings affected by slow-moving landslides” by Qin Chen et al. Anonymous Referee #2', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Mar 2020
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer 2', Lixia Chen, 23 Mar 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (19 May 2020) by Mario Parise

AR by Lixia Chen on behalf of the Authors (29 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Jul 2020) by Mario Parise

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (07 Jul 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (14 Jul 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments
The paper shows the results of a study focused on the vulnerability analysis of buildings exposed to slow-moving landslides. To this aim, a methodological approach – which involves carrying out numerical analyses based on different rainfall scenarios – is proposed and applied to a case study in China. The authors properly addressed most of comments I raised. However, some efforts are still required in order to improve the clarity of the work done.

Specific comments
Page 8 – Equation (8). I would observe that the maximum deflection of a simple rectangular beam as expressed with the Equation (8) corresponds to the maximum horizontal displacement of the foundation (see Page 8 - Lines from 165 to 166) only if the edges of the beam (or the foundation) are fixed. This is a work hypothesis that, in my opinion, has to be highlighted.
Page 8 – line 164. The authors claim that “It is worth pointing out that the building in our study case is regarded as a rigid building”. This is not clear for me. Reading the paper I understood that superstructure deforms as the foundation deforms due to the action exerted by the landslide thrust. Please clarify.
Page 9 – Lines 196 to 197. The authors observe that “It is important to note that FS is calculated for only the area where the building under study is located, but not for the whole landslide area”. This is not clear for me. Did the authors consider different slip surfaces in applying the Limit Equilibrium Method explained in Section 2.1? In the case of a positive answer, are the soil shear strength parameters the same (i.e. the ones summarized in Table 3) for all the considered slip surfaces?
Page 9 – Line 202. Among the papers referenced by the authors, only the one written by Papathoma-Köhle et al. (2015) explicitly mentions the use of Weibull distribution in physical vulnerability analyses. Please amend the text accordingly.
Page 20 – Line 386. The authors observe that “Besides, buildings with […] higher E/G ratio have higher resistance”. This is not properly true since, as highlighted in Figure 14d, the vulnerability increases as the E/G ratio increases.
Page 21 – Line 408. Based on Figure 16 (a and b), the authors said that “When the building width is close to the building length, the vulnerability of the building is low under the same value of Fsb”. Looking at Figure 16 (a and b) this is not clear for me. Could the authors better explain?

Technical corrections
Page 7 – line 145. In the text, one can read: “When = L/2”. It should be corrected as: “When x = L/2”.
Page 7 – line 151. Since using the terms “vertical plane” twice in the same sentence may be misleading, I would suggest rephrasing the sentence.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (17 Jul 2020) by Mario Parise

AR by Lixia Chen on behalf of the Authors (25 Jul 2020) Author's response

ED: Publish as is (06 Aug 2020) by Mario Parise

AR by Lixia Chen on behalf of the Authors (10 Aug 2020)

Short summary

Previous studies have focused on generalized vulnerability assessment from landslides or other types of slope failures, such as debris flow and rockfall. The proposed study establishes a three-step approach to investigate the physical vulnerability of buildings affected by slow-moving landslides. Herein, good consistency between the estimated building physical vulnerability and in-field damage evidence was found.