Hydrology

The inclusion of dynamic pore pressures is a critical element in enabling a more precise estimate of the slope factor of safety to be made. In certain climatic zones such as the Tropics and sub-tropics this inclusion is of critical importance. Here intense rainfall rates coupled with vegetation commonly found on slopes in these regions, demands an integrated dynamic model capable of capturing the highly dynamic precipitation inputs and consequential pore pressure responses.

The hydrological representation within CHASM™ seeks to accommodate these demands in the following manner:

- A finite difference representation of the entire slope hydrology
- The inclusion of unsaturated conditions in the slope using the Millington-Quirk method for unsaturated hydraulic conductivity estimation.
- A vegetation module that allows for the modification of the soil hydraulic conductivity within the root zone area according to the vegetation type
- Inclusion of effective rainfall computed by utilisation of a vegetation canopy model
- Facilitates the inclusion of soil water convergence and divergence by allowing cells to have variable 'breadth' in the third dimension.