Landslide-dam is one kind of special natural hazards triggered by earthquakes and tectonic motions, as a consequent, the blocking of rivers and the dammed lakes tend to be resulted from Landslide-dam. Once the natural landslide-dam bursting happen, the quick discharge of lake water will cause the losses that cannot be estimated to the downstream area, as a result, how to efficiently take some emergency response measures to reduce the risk of landslide-dammed lake is an important issue.

Fig Aerial view of drainage channel on top of the Tangjiashan landslide dam

The great Wenchuan Earthquake of May 12, 2008 created 256 natural dams, of which 34 presented significant risks to downstream areas in the event of their uncontrolled failure. Therefore, Prof CHEN Xiao Qing, CUI Peng and their team from Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS, take the Tangjiashan landslide dam as the research object and summarize the advantages and disadvantages of various emergency response countermeasures that were applied in Tangjiashan landslide-dammed lake. As a result, four aspects of improvements that proved by ultimate successful risk mitigation effects have been achieved as follow:①Sluiceway channels utilizing a combination of cross-section types② increased channel slope③better protection of inlets and outlets ④channels lined to better control the incision rate.

CHEN Xiao Qing, CUI Peng et al. Emergency response to the Tangjiashan landslide-dammed lake resulting from the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, China. Landslides (2011) 8:91–98

DOI 10.1007/s10346-010-0236-6. (Download Here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/w6qq267720140128/)