A study on the fractal characteristics of displacement time-series during the evolution of landslides

Abstract

Landslides are one of the major natural disasters that are frequently occurring in southwestern China. The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between failure of landslide and fractal dimension using displacement time-series. Taking two slopes in southwestern China as examples, we estimate the fractal parameters of displacement time-series and analyze the relationship between fractal dimension and the stability of the slope during the evolution of landslides. The result shows that the fractal dimension increases when a landslide undergoes a transition from stability to failure, but decreases during the evolution from active to stable. Fractal dimension has a critical value of 1.10 in the transition between active and stable, which indicates that fractal dimension is an important nonlinear parameter in the evaluation of the stability of landslides, although more studies and in situ data are required for validation.