Landslides in the Thick Loess Terrain of North-West China - hardcover

This volume is a study of landslides and debris flows on the Loess Plateau of north-central China which lies in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The Loess Plateau is a region with a dense rural population and a number of cities housing more than a million people. Landslides are triggered by heavy rainstorms and earthquakes have been a recurrent hazard in the loess terrain for over two millennia. The contributors to this book set out with a number of goals including: establishing the role of bedrock relief in landsliding, studying the nature of the hydrological system within the loess slopes, characterising the modes of failure of the loess fabric, producing a dynamically-based classification of loess landslides and 'ultimately establishing criteria for a simple warning system for loess slope failure, together with an advisory scheme for local population response to landslide warnings. This volume is lavishly illustrated and includes over forty colour maps unique in their content and coverage, showing for the first time the detailed distribution of landslides in the thick loess terrain of eastern Gansu Province, North China.