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Using the Working Classification of Landslides to Assess the Danger from a

Natural Slope

Conference Paper · September 2014

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-09057-3_1

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 Using the Working Classification of Landslides
to Assess the Danger from a Natural Slope 1
David Cruden and Heng-Xing Lan

Abstract
A pre-requisite for any calculation of the stability of a natural slope is a hypothesis about how
the slope may move. No formal method for estimating likely kinematic modes of slopes exists.
We have suggested a working hypothesis that similar landslides in similar materials are caused
by similar processes under similar conditions. During the IDNDR (1990–2000), the IAEG
Commission on Landslides contributed to the Working Classification of Landslides which
now records an international consensus . A landslide can be typed by a term describing the
natural materials before they were displaced and a second term describing the movement.
Materials are rock, debris or earth; earth may be sand, silt or clay. Movements may be falls,
flows, slides, spreads or topples. Water conditions in the displaced material may range from
dry thru’ moist and wet to very wet. In permafrost terrain, frozen and thawed displaced
material may occur. Water conditions, material and mode of movement may govern the rate of
movement of the displacing mass. It can range from extremely slow to the extremely rapid
movements, which may have catastrophic impacts. Activity, its distribution and style may
affect anticipated modes of movement in preparatory or marginal slopes. Styles of movement
may be complex, composite, successive and multiple. Compilations of historic activity as
landslide inventories suggest hazard scenarios which can form plausible initial hypotheses for
risk assessments.

style, frequency of occurrence, extent and consequences of

1.1 A Working Hypothesis
failures that may occur in the future.
Our discussion of what constitute similar landslide types
We have put forward the working hypothesis that similar
and similar materials is here followed by a brief description
landslides in similar materials are caused by similar pro-
of the triggering causes of landslides and the conditions
cesses acting under similar conditions (Cruden and Martin
which prepare for their action. We then suggest how that
2013). This is our restatement of the first principle of the
activity can be described and what the consequences of it
IAEG Commission on Landslides and other Mass Move-
might be. Given knowledge of the natural materials forming
ments on Slopes (1984). This principle asserted that “natural
a slope and of the processes acting on it we should be able to
slope failures in the future will most likely be in geologic,
hypothesize how it might move by comparisons with the
geomorphic and hydrologic situations that have led to past
movements of similar slopes close by Dangers (Fell et al.
and present failures we have the possibility to estimate the
2005) can thus be identified.

D. Cruden (&) 1.2 Landslide Types and Materials

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
e-mail: dcruden@ualberta.ca Enquiries about types of landslides have found answers in
classifications of landslides. The International Union of
H.-X. Lan
Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Geological Sciences Working Group on Landslides has

G. Lollino et al. (eds.), Engineering Geology for Society and Territory – Volume 2, 3
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-09057-3_1, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
4 D. Cruden and H.-X. Lan

developed an international consensus on landslide classifi- Table 1.1 A Glossary for forming names of landslides
cation which has been summarized in the Multilingual State of activity Distribution of Style of activity
Landslide Glossary (WP/WLI 1993b; Dikau et al. 1996, activity
Appendix 1). This classification, the Working Classification, Preparatory
has been used in the latest edition of the Transportation Marginal
Research Board’s Special Report on landslides (Turner and Active Advancing Complex
Schuster 1996) to update Varnes’ (1958, 1978) widely-used
Reactivated Retrogressing Composite
classifications of landslides. Keegan (2007) used the
Suspended Enlarging Multiple
Working Classification in the development of a ground
hazard management system for Canada’s railways. A recent Inactive :Dormant Diminishing Successive
handbook (Highland and Bobrowsky 2008) has made the :Abandoned Moving Single
Classifications widely available. :Repaired
The Working Classification is open to additions. The :Stabilized Confined
principles of nomenclature suggest that a term applied to a :Relict Widening
landslide in one sense should not be re-applied in another Rate of movement Water conditions Material Type
sense. A term might be added if it is useful, if its use echoes
Extremely rapid Dry Rock Fall
popular use of the term and the term has not already been
Very rapid Moist Soil :Debris Topple
widely used in a different sense in the landslide literature.
Rapid Wet :Earth Slide
The criteria used in the description of landslides (Cruden
and Varnes 1996) follow Varnes (1978) in emphasizing Moderate Very Wet :Sand Spread
material and movement. A landslide can be described by a Slow Frozen :Silt Flow
word describing the material and a second word describing Very slow Thawed :Clay
the type of movement. The major divisions of materials are Extremely slow
unchanged from Varnes (1978): rock, debris and earth. Terms can be used to describe subsequent movements in complex
Movements have again been divided into five types: falls, landslides and lower movements in composite landslides
flows, slides, spreads and topples.

sequence of types of movement, fall then flow, indicates the

1.2.1 Landslide Types
A landslide type becomes more elaborate as more informa-
tion about movement becomes available. Adjectives can be
added in front of the noun string defining the type of land-
slide to build up the description of the movement. It is useful
to have a preferred sequence of terms in naming the
movement. A sequence which indicates a progressive nar-
rowing of the focus of the descriptors, first in time, then in
space, from a view of the whole landslide to parts of the
movement and to the materials involved, would follow a
typical landslide reconnaissance. The recommended
sequence is Activity, Rate of Movement, Moisture Condi-
tions, Material. Type of Movement as shown in Table 1.1.
Often the context implies a particular value of a
descriptor, which may then be omitted or descriptors may be
dropped if they are not relevant. Second or subsequent
movements in complex or composite landslides can be
described by repeating terms in Table 1.1. Descriptors,
which are the same as those for the first movement, may then
be omitted from the name. The Frank Slide, for instance, was
a complex, extremely rapid, dry rock-fall debris-flow. The
type of material may be connected to its type of movement
by a hyphen as in “debris-flow” or left unhyphenated when
there is no ambiguity as in “the Frank rock fall”. The
sequence of movements in the landslide; the addition of the
“complex” descriptor to the name distinguishes the landslide
from a composite rock-fall debris-flow. The full name of the
Frank Slide as given above, implies that the debris flow was
both extremely rapid and dry as those descriptors are used
for the initial rock-fall. The full name of the landslide need
only be given once. Subsequent references should then be to
the initial material and type of movement as in “the rock
fall” for the landslide at Frank.
In this section, materials and types of movement are
reviewed. In Sects. 1.3 and 1.4, typical causes are listed,
activity considered and velocities defined.
1.2.2 Materials
1.2.2.1 Water Conditions
Varnes (1978, p. 24) defined four terms related to water
contents of displaced materials in landslides.
(1) Dry, no moisture visible.
(2) Moist, contains some water but no free water. The
material may behave as a plastic solid but does not flow.
(3) Wet, contains enough water to behave in part as a
liquid, has water flowing from it, or supports significant
bodies of standing water.
1 Using the Working Classification of Landslides
(4) Very wet, contains enough water to flow as a liquid
under low gradients.
Supposing however, that the displaced materials were
fine-grained soils which could be considered to be remoul-
ded. The boundaries between Varnes’ terms would corre-
spond to their Atterberg limits; the Shrinkage, Plastic and
Liquid Limits would separate dry, moist, wet and very wet
soils. The observations then describe states of the displaced
materials rather than water contents. So the term, “condi-
tion”, suggested by Hungr et al. (2001, p. 225) is preferred
here.
A fifth term, frozen, was suggested by Cruden and
Couture (2010) for use in permafrost terrains. Water in the
displaced or displacing material is present as ice. The term is
useful for describing inactive landslides in permafrost and
for some active movements in frozen ground. Some rock
glaciers are very slow, frozen rock flows (Giardino et al.
1987), frozen rock and soil falls are produced by thermal
niche erosion along Arctic coasts (Hoque and Pollard 2009)
As most slope instabilities in permafrost terrain result
from or are directly related to the phase change of water, a
sixth term, thawed, frequently expresses the ground and
water conditions while landsliding is active (Couture and
Cruden 2010). In the thawed condition, or in the transition
from frozen to thawed, significant amounts of water in a
liquid phase contribute to slope instability.
The water conditions of the displaced masses described
by these terms may give useful guidance for assumptions
about the water contents of the displacing materials while the
materials were displacing. However soil or rock masses may
drain quickly after displacement and individual masses may
have water contents which differ considerably from the
average water content of the displacing material (Hutchinson
1988, Fig. 9).
1.2.2.2 Soil
We can follow Varnes (1978) in describing materials in
landslides as either rock, a hard or firm mass that was intact
and in its natural place before the initiation of movement, or
soil, an aggregate of solid particles generally of minerals and
rocks which has either been transported or formed by the
weathering of rock in place. Gases or liquids filling the pores
of the soil form part of the soil.
Soil is divided into debris and earth. Debris contains a
significant proportion of coarse material; 20–80 % of the
particles are larger than 2 mm, the remainders are less than
2 mm. Earth describes material in which 80 % or more of the
particles are smaller than 2 mm; it includes a range of
materials from non-plastic sand to highly plastic clay.
In the absence of international standards, the Working
Party was unable to progress beyond this simple division.
With the adoption of an International Standard (ISO 14688-
5
1) for the identification and description of soil, some further
observations may be useful during the reconnaissance of the
landslide.
Flow charts based on the Standard have been developed
for the identification and description of soils (Norbury 2010,
Figs. 4.1 and 4.3). They first distinguish made ground,
organic soil, and volcanic soil from natural soils by the ways
in which they are formed (Fig. 3a). These materials have
been the subjects of specialized studies by construction,
transportation, and forestry engineers and by volcanologists
among others (Keegan 2007; MacFarlane 1969; Francis
1993). Specialized terminologies exist for describing par-
ticular types of landslides that occur in these materials. The
merging of these terminologies with the Working Classifi-
cation awaits further study. It is interesting however to ask
whether the grain size description of materials advocated in
the remaining part of the flow diagram might also be use-
fully applied to these materials (Fig. 3b). Keegan et al.
(2007) suggested this possibility for fills constructed from
natural materials.
The International Standard (ISO 14688-1) divided soils
into cohesive (fine) and cohesionless (coarse) soils. Fine soil
can be conveniently divided into silts and clays by the
qualitative observations of plasticity, dilatancy and other
properties. So, when a uniform soil is displaced in an earth
landslide, it should be possible to readily classify the
material as debris, sand, silt, or clay by inspection of either
the margins or main scarp of the landslide or of undeformed
material amid the landslide deposits. As examples of this
practice, Varnes (1978, Figs. 2:24, 2:25) and Hungr et al.
(2001, Figs. 5, 6) have illustrated both sand and silt flows.
1.2.2.3 Rock
The Working Classification does not divide rock. An Inter-
national Standard (ISO 14689-1, 2003) would allow classi-
fication by genesis, structure, grain size and mineralogy
among other criteria. The Standard recognizes a rock mass
as rock material separated by discontinuities and affected by
weathering (Ground Cause 3 in Table 1.1). Table 13 in the
Standard gives criteria for the recognition of this Cause.
Similarly ground causes 4, 5, 6 and 7, which arise from
discontinuities within rock masses, can be described using
Sect. 1.4: 3 of the Standard. The orientation of bedding in
sedimentary rock with respect to a topographic slope is a
useful predictor of possible movement modes on the slope
(Cruden 2003a, b, c).
1.2.3 Types of Landslide Movement
In this section, the five kinematically distinct types of
landslides are described in a sequence, fall, topple, slide,
6 D. Cruden and H.-X. Lan
spread and flow (WP/WLI, 1993b, Fig. 6). It begins with
movements typical of rocks on steep slopes and ends with
earth flows on shallow slopes.
A fall starts with the detachment of soil or rock from a
steep slope along a surface on which little or no shear dis-
placement takes place. The material then descends largely
through the air by falling, saltation or rolling. Movement is
very rapid to extremely rapid. Except when the displaced
mass has been undercut, falling will be preceded by small
sliding or toppling movements, which separate the displac-
ing material from the undisturbed mass. Under-cutting typ-
ically occurs in cohesive soils or rocks at the toe of cliffs
undergoing wave attack or in the eroding banks of rivers.
A topple is the forward rotation out of the slope of a mass
of soil or rock about a point or axis below the centre of
gravity of the displaced mass. Toppling is sometimes driven
by gravity exerted through material upslope of the displaced
mass, and sometimes through water or ice in cracks in the
mass. Topples may lead to falls or slides of the displaced
mass depending on the geometry of the moving mass, of the
surface of separation and the orientation and extent of the
kinematically active discontinuities. Topples range from
extremely slow to extremely rapid, sometimes accelerating
throughout the movement.
A slide is a down slope movement of a rock mass
occurring dominantly on surfaces of rupture or relatively
thin zones of intense shear strain Movement is usually
progressive; it does not initially occur simultaneously over
the whole of what eventually becomes the surface of rupture,
it propagates from an area of local rupture. Often the first
signs of ground movement are cracks in the original ground
surface along which the main scarp of the slide will form.
The displaced mass may slide beyond the toe of the surface
of rupture covering the original ground surface of the slope
which then becomes a surface of separation.
The term spread was introduced to geotechnical engi-
neering by Terzaghi and Peck (1948, p. 3) to describe sud-
den movements on water-bearing seams of sand or silt
overlain by homogeneous clays or loaded by fills. Recog-
nition of the phenomenon is considerably older (Cruden
2003a, b, c). One of the three types of landslides distin-
guished by Dana (1863, pp. 649–650) took place “when a
layer of clay or wet sand becomes wet and softened by
percolating water and then is pressed out laterally by the
weight of the super incumbent layers”.
The Working Classification defined a spread as an
extension of a cohesive soil or rock mass combined with a
general subsidence of the fractured mass of cohesive mate-
rial into softer underlying material. The rupture surface is not
a surface of intense shear. Spreads may result from lique-
faction or flow (and extrusion) of the softer material. Varnes
(1978) distinguished spreads, typical of rock, which exten-
ded without forming an identifiable rupture surface from
movements in cohesive soils overlying liquefied materials or
materials, which are flowing plastically. The cohesive
materials may also subside, translate, rotate, disintegrate or
liquefy and flow. Clearly these movements are complex but
they are sufficiently common in certain materials and geo-
logical situations that a separate type of movement is worth
recognizing.
A flow is a spatially continuous movement in which
surfaces of shear are short-lived, closely spaced and not
usually preserved. The distribution of velocities in the dis-
placing mass resembles that in a viscous liquid. The lower
boundary of the displaced mass may be a surface along
which appreciable differential movement has taken place or
a thick zone of distributed shear. There is then a undeformed
material depending on the water content, mobility and
evolution of the movement. Debris slides may become
extremely rapid debris flows, debris avalanches, as the dis-
placed material loses cohesion, gains water or encounters
steeper slopes.
1.3 Landslide Causes
1.3.1 Causes and Triggers Over Time
Diagrams have been published (Terzaghi 1950, Fig. 5b) and
reproduced (WP/WLI 1994, Fig. 1) showing “changes in the
factor of safety with time”. Such changes should be con-
sidered as trends occurring on particular potential surfaces of
rupture over time in “first-time” slides (Hutchinson 1988,
Table 2). Such movements take place in ground, which has
not been previously sheared by geomorphological processes
or by ground conditions (Table 1.2).
The changes may be seasonal changes in rainfall and
evaporation and are reflected in seasonal changes in the
factor of safety. If there is a longer-term trend in ground-
water levels (due perhaps, to changes in land use) or changes
in strength due to weathering, these changes show as trends
super imposed on seasonal variation. Sudden changes are
usually due to changes in the forces applied to the slope. So
seldom can a landslide be attributed to a single cause. The
process leading to the development of the landslide may
begin with the formation of the rock itself…and include all
the subsequent events of the crustal movement, erosion and
weathering (Varnes 1978, p. 26).
The change from a stable state to an active, currently
moving slope is usefully considered as passing through two
intermediate states
(1) A preparatory state of activity in which preparatory
causes make the slope less stable without initiating
movement.
(2) A marginal state of activity in which triggering causes
may initiate movement.
1 Using the Working Classification of Landslides 7

Table 1.2 Checklists of landslide causes A particular cause may be either preparatory or triggering
1. Ground causes or both in sequence. It may act over a long period of time,
(1) Weak materials say, gradually eroding the toe of a slope or trigger a
movement by rapid drawdown after a flood (Eshragian et al.
(2) Sensitive materials
2007). These complexities suggested an operational classi-
(3) Weathered materials
fication of landslide causes to the Working Party on World
(4) Sheared materials
Landslide Inventory (1994). They created checklists of
(5) Jointed or fissured materials landslide causes grouped by the tools and techniques that
(6) Adversely-oriented, mass discontinuity (bedding, can be used to document the causes. These lists, with
schistosity) changes to emphasize causes active in Canada, form
(7) Adversely-oriented, structural discontinuity (fault, Table 1.2. They are divided into Ground Conditions, Geo-
unconformity, contact)
morphological Processes, Physical Processes and Artificial
(8) Contrast in permeability Processes. Any such list is a compromise between conve-
(9) Contrast in stiffness (stiff, dense materials over plastic nience and completeness; the inclusion of some Canadian
materials)
case histories in these sections may however suggest some
2. Geomorphological causes hazard scenarios.
(1) Tectonic uplift
(2) Glacial rebound
(3) Fluvial erosion of the slope toe 1.3.2 Landslide Casual Factors
(4) Wave erosion of the slope toe
(5) Glacial erosion of the slope toe
1.3.2.1 Ground Conditions
Ground conditions are the specification of the slope system,
(6) Erosion of the lateral margins
the setting on which a process can act to prepare or trigger a
(7) Subterranean erosion (solution, piping)
landslide (WP/WLI 1994). The fabric of the rock or soil
(8) Deposition loading the slope or its crest mass, data such as orientations of penetrative discontinuities,
(9) Vegetation removal (by forest fire, drought) bedding, schistosity or cleavage, the spacing of joints and
3. Physical causes fissures and the location and orientation of structural dis-
(1) Intense rainfall continuities like faults, unconformities and contacts can be
(2) Rapid snow melt mapped on the displaced material of the landslide and where
(3) Prolonged exceptional precipitation they are exposed on the lateral margins main scarp and
crown of the landslide (Keaton and DeGraff 1996). Below
(4) Rapid drawdown (of floods and tides)
the ground surface, fabric can be explored by trenching,
(5) Earthquake
drilling, adits and by other methods (McGuffey et al. 1996).
(6) Ice damming Several ground conditions can exist on one slope. At the
(7) Thawing Frank Slide, for instance, McConnell and Brock (1904,
(8) Freeze and thaw weathering p. 14) noted The rock slide cannot therefore be considered
(9) Shrink and swell weathering as due to a single cause, but rather, like so many phenomena
4. Artificial causes in nature, to a combination of causes, cumulative in their
(1) Excavation of the slope or its toe effects. The chief of these were the structure and condition of
the mountain. The structure and condition of the mountain
(2) Loading of the slope or its crest
included ground causes listed in Table 1.1, as (4) sheared
(3) Drawdown (of reservoirs)
material; (5) Jointed or fissured material; (6) Adversely-
(4) Deforestation
oriented bedding (on the east limb of the Turtle Mountain
(5) Irrigation Anticline); and (7) Adversely-oriented structural disconti-
(6) Mining nuities (fault splays above the Turtle Mountain Fault)
(7) Artificial vibration (Cruden and Krahn 1973; Cruden and Martin 2007). These
(8) Water leakage from utilities are preparatory causes and they place Frank among
(9) Defective surface drainage Hutchinson’s (1988) Slides on pre-existing shears rather
(10) Dumping of loose materials
than with the First-time Slides. Modelling studies (Krahn
and Morgenstern 1979; Cruden and Martin, 2007) confirm
8 D. Cruden and H.-X. Lan
“shear strength parameters are at or about residual values”
(Hutchinson 1988, p. 22).
Contrasts in permeability and stiffness (Ground causes 8
and 9) are typical of the sediments deposited by glacial
advances in preglacial valleys. South of Ashcroft, B.C., the
Thompson River is re-excavating a preglacial channel
through permeable terrace gravels and stiff tills into glacio-
lacustrine deposits, which have been sheared by glacio-tec-
tonics along weak clay layers (Ground cause 1, Eshragian
et al. 2007).
Post-glacial marine clays uplifted by glacial rebound
(Geomorphological Cause 2) occur on Canada’s coasts As
the saline water is leached from their pore spaces, the clays
become sensitive. Developments on these clays may be
caught up in natural slides and spreads (Ground cause 2),
which liquefy into flows (Tavenas et al. 1971; Brezinski
1971).
1.3.2.2 Geomorphological Processes
Changes in the morphology of the ground can be docu-
mented from geological and topographic maps, aerial pho-
tographs, surveys of the landslide or observations by the
local population. At Frank, after tectonic uplift (Geomor-
phological Cause 1) raised the Turtle Mountain Anticline,
glacial erosion (Cause 5) and fluvial erosion (Cause 3)
shaped Turtle Mountain. Water infiltrating the many dis-
continuities in the rock mass, dissolved cohesion (Cause 6)
in the limestones. Forest fires had burnt (Cause 9) much of
the tree cover before the Slide took place (McConnell and
Brock 1904, Plate 4).
Wave erosion of slope toes (Cause 6) has been reported
both from Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and from the Arctic
Ocean (Cruden et al. 1989). Fjord coasts in British Columbia
and northeastern Canada may see rapid sedimentation where
rivers enter the heads of these deep, steep inlets (loading the
crests of slopes, Cause 8).
1.3.2.3 Physical Processes
Changes in the physical environment of slope can be doc-
umented by instrumentation within appropriate distances.
Rain gauges give estimates of precipitation, seismographs
records ground shaking by earthquakes and piezometers
show changes in groundwater pressure over time.
At Frank, precipitation in the previous year, 1902, was
exceptional (Cause 3). The night of the Slide was excessively
cold…The day before and the preceding days had been very
hot, so that the fissures in the mountain must have been filled
with water on which the frost would act with powerful effect
(McConnell and Brock 1904, p. 14). These circumstances
constituted Cause 2 (rapid snow melt), Cause 8 (freeze and
thaw weathering) and Cause 6 (ice damming).
The landslide at St. Jean Vianney was also heralded by
snow-melt and by ground thawing (Cause 7). Heavy rain
(Cause 1) followed, immediately preceding movements. The
site was covered by the displaced material deposited by a
previous landslide, possibly seismically triggered (Tavenas
et al. 1971). At Kenogami (Brzezinski 1971), 7 km to the
south-west, an earthquake had shaken the site the previous day
(Sept. 30, 1924) during an intense rainfall (Causes 5 and 1).
1.3.2.4 Artificial Processes
Human modification of a slope can be documented by maps
and aerial photographs and from construction and excava-
tion records. Separate identification of artificially-induced
landslides is useful for administrative purposes and in hazard
and risk assessments.
Following the Frank Slide, McConnell and Brock were
instructed by the Superintendent of Mines from the Canadian
Department of the Interior to determine as carefully as pos-
sible…the causes which led to the breaking away of the
mountain mass, whether due to imperfect or careless mining
operations, the explosion of fire-damp, exceptionally bad
ground, or similar causes (Cruden 2003a, b, c, p. 8). They
concluded The opening up of large chambers in the mine,
situated under the base of the mountain may well have been a
contributory cause (McConnell and Brock 1904, p. 17). On
page 13, the Report is more definite. “It is almost impossible
to avoid the conclusion that these great chambers…situated
directly under the foot of the mountain must have weakened
it… It is a significant fact that the edges of the break corre-
spond very closely with the limits of the big chambers and
mined coal.” However, a subsequent report prepared when
access to the lightly damaged mine was restored, showed the
north lateral margin of the Slide extended over a quarter of
the Slide’s width beyond the mined area (Daly, Rice and
Miller 1912; Cruden and Martin 2007). The sub-horizontal
mine adits also acted as drains for water infiltrating the mine
from the slope surface, perhaps, with the mine ventilation
contributing to the stabilization of the slope.
The survival of all the miners underground at the time of
the Slide allowed McConnell and Brock (1904, pp. 11–12)
to reject the possibility of a fire damp explosion. Fire damp
is an explosive mixture of methane (from coal) and air. This
concern, however, foreshadowed Canada’s worst mining
disaster, at the Hillcrest Mine, south of Turtle Mountain,
where in June 1914, a fire damp explosion killed 189 miners.
Sparks from a fall of rock had ignited methane gas. From
this fire had sprung the enormous coal dust explosion
(Anderson 1980, p. 41) and produced an extreme example of
indirect landslide damage.
Both the sites at St. Jean Vianney and Kenogami would
have been cleared of their forest cover before their compar-
atively recent development (Cause 4). At Kenogami, a large
woodpile for the pulp mill had been placed on what became
the crown of the landslide (Brzezinski 1971, Fig. 3) and water
discharge from the mill was poorly controlled (Causes 2,9)
1 Using the Working Classification of Landslides
1.4 Landslide Activity and Travel
1.4.1 Landslide Activity
Under activity, broad aspects of landslides are described,
those aspects that should focus the initial reconnaissance of
movements before more detailed examination of materials
displaced (WP/WLI 1993a, b). The terms Varnes (1978)
considered relating to age and state of activity with some of
the terms from sequence or repetition of movement have been
regrouped under three headings; State of Activity which
describes what is known about the timing of movements,
Distribution of Activity, which describes broadly where the
landslide is moving and Style of Activity, which indicates
how different movements contribute to the landslide. The
terms used are listed in the first 3 columns of Table 1.1.
Discussing the causes of landslides, WP/WLI (1994)
distinguished preparatory causes from triggering causes.
Preparatory causes affect stable slopes, tending to reduce
their stability towards marginally stable states. In a mar-
ginally stable state, a triggering cause may initiate movement
of a slope. These different states of activity, preparatory and
marginal, can be placed in Hutchinson’s (1973, Fig. 5) cycle
of successive stages of the behaviour of London Clay cliffs
subject to strong toe erosion. The preparatory state of
activity is similar to the dormant and repaired states of
activity in which destabilizing processes are insufficient to
cause failure. So, monitoring is required only to check that
there is little change in the state of activity. Marginal activity
occurs at Stage 1.5, between Stage 1 and Stage 2. When the
slope is marginal the surface of rupture of the slide is
forming and growing in length as softening processes
destroy cohesion. At Stage 2 the slope is active. Keegan
et al. (2007, Table 4) suggested that the suspended state of
activity was similar to the marginal state (Stage 4). Slopes in
both these states fail at some time in response to destabi-
lizing processes…triggering causal factors [had been]
identified that can make the [slopes] actively unstable.
The repaired state is a name for the stabilized recently
state defined by Keegan et al. (2007); artificial remedial
measures have stopped movements within the last cycle of
seasons. With the passage of years and careful monitoring,
as at Checkerboard Creek (Watson et al. 2006), the repair
may become regarded as a slope stabilization and the state of
activity of the slope changed to stabilized.
1.4.1.1 State of Activity
Active landslides are those that are currently moving.
Landslides which have moved within the last annual cycle of
seasons but which are not moving at present were described
by Varnes (1978) as suspended. A landslide, which is again
active after being inactive may be called reactivated. Slides
that are reactivated generally move on pre-existing shears
9
whose strength parameters approach residual (Skempton
1970) or ultimate (Krahn and Morgenstern 1979) values.
They can be distinguished from first-time slides on whose
rupture surfaces, resistance to shear may initially approach
peak values (Hutchinson 1988, Table 2).
Inactive landslides are those, which have last moved more
than one annual cycle of seasons ago. This state can be
subdivided. If the causes of movement apparently remain,
then the landslides are dormant. Perhaps, however, the river,
which had been eroding the toe of the moving slope has itself
changed course and the landslide is abandoned (Hutchinson
and Gostelow 1976). The landslide deposits at St. Jean
Vianney appeared “ancient” (Tavenas et al. 1971) perhaps
abandoned. However a cause of movement, fluvial erosion,
remained and the landslide reactivated. If the toe of the slope
had been protected against erosion by bank armoring or other
artificial remedial measures have stopped the movement, the
landslide might be described as stabilized. Keegan (2007)
and Keegan et al. (2007) introduced repaired to describe
landslides whose movements had been suspended by reme-
dial measures. Landslides often remain visible in the land-
scape for thousands of years after they have moved and
become inactive. Landslides, which have clearly developed
under different geomorphological or climatic conditions,
perhaps thousands of years ago can be called relict. Rail and
road construction coupled with continued fluvial erosion may
have reactivated a relict debris flow, the Drynoch Slide,
which occurred under paraglacial conditions in the Fraser
Canyon (van Dine 1980; Bovis and Jones 1992).
Standard criteria might be developed to assist in distin-
guishing suspended landslides from dormant and relict
landslides. These would describe how vegetation recolonizes
the surfaces exposed by slope movements and also the dis-
section of the new topography by drainage. The rate of these
changes depends both on the local climate and the local
vegetation. When the main scarp of a landslide has new
vegetation rooting in it, the landslide is usually dormant;
when drainage extends across a landslide without obvious
discontinuities the landslide is commonly relict. However,
these generalizations should be confirmed by detailed study
of sample slope movements under local conditions.
1.4.1.2 Distribution of Activity
Varnes (1978) defined a number of terms that can be used to
describe the activity distribution in a landslide. Movement
may be limited to the displacing material or the rupture
surface may be enlarging, continually adding to the volume
of displacing material. If the rupture surface is extending in
the direction opposite to the movement of the displaced
material, the landslide is said to be retrogressing. If the
rupture surface is extending in the direction of movement the
landslide is advancing. If the rupture surface is extending at
one or both lateral margins, the landslide is widening.
10
Hutchinson (1988, p. 9) has drawn attention to confined
movements that have a scarp but no rupture surface visible in
the foot of the displaced mass. He suggested that displace-
ments in the head of the displaced mass are taken up by
compression, and slight bulging in the foot of the mass. If the
rupture surface of the landslide is enlarging in two or more
directions, Varnes (1978, p. 23) suggested the term progres-
sive for the landslide while noting this term had also been used
for both advancing and retrogressing landslides. This term is
also current for describing the process, progressive failure by
which the rupture surface in some slides extends. The possi-
bility of confusion seems sufficient now to abandon “pro-
gressive” in favour of describing the landslide as enlarging.
To complete the possibilities, terms are needed for
landslides in which the volume of displacing material can be
seen to be reducing with time and for those landslides where
no trend is obvious.
Movements such as rotational slides and topples may stop
naturally after substantial displacements because the move-
ments themselves reduce the gravitational forces on the
displaced masses. Alternatively, rock masses may be dilated
by movements that rapidly increase the volumes of cracks in
the masses and cause decreases in fluid pore pressures within
these cracks. However, to conclude that the displacing mass
is stabilizing because its volume is decreasing may be pre-
mature. Hutchinson (1973) has pointed out that the activity
of rotational slides caused by erosion at the toe of slopes in
cohesive soils is often cyclic. The term, diminishing, for a
landslide whose displacing material is decreasing in volume
seems free of undesired implications. Landslides whose
displaced materials continue to move but whose rupture
surfaces show no visible changes can be described as
moving.
1.4.1.3 Style of Activity
The way in which different movements contribute to the
landslide, the style of the landslide activity, can be described
by terms from Varnes (1978, p. 23).
There, complex landslides are defined as exhibiting at
least two types of movements. The Working Party limited
the term to movements in which the types are in sequence.
For instance Giraud et al. (1990) described topples in which
some of the displaced mass subsequently slid, a complex
rock-topple rock-slide . Not all the toppled mass slid but no
significant part of the displaced mass slid without first top-
pling. The landslide from Elk Ridge, Kananaskis Country,
Alberta followed this sequence (Hu and Cruden 1992).
A former synonym of complex, composite, can describe
landslides in which different types of movement occur in
different areas of the displaced mass, sometimes simulta-
neously. Moreover, these different areas of the displaced
mass may show different sequences of movements. The roof
and wall collapse structures described by Harrison and
D. Cruden and H.-X. Lan
Falcon (1936), called slide-toe topples by Goodman and
Bray (1976) are composite rock-slide rock-topples . Hu and
Cruden (1993) have described similar movements in the
Highwood Pass, Alberta. WP/WLI (1993a, b) adopted the
convention of treating the higher of the two movements as
the first movement and the lower of the two movements as
the second movement (Table 1.1).
A multiple landslide shows repeated movements of the
same type, often following the enlargement of the rupture
surface. The newly displaced masses are in contact with
previously displaced masses and often share a rupture sur-
face with them. In a retrogressive, multiple, rotational slide,
two or more blocks have each moved on curved rupture
surfaces tangential to a common generally deep rupture
surface (Thomson and Hayley 1975).
A successive movement is identical in type to an earlier
movement but in contrast to a multiple movement does not
share displaced material or a rupture surface with it.
According to Skempton and Hutchinson (1969) Successive
rotational slips consist of an assembly of individual shallow
rotational slips. Hutchinson (1967) commented that, Irreg-
ular successive slips which form a mosaic rather than a
stepped pattern in plan are also found.
Single landslides consist of a single movement of dis-
placed material often as an unbroken block. They contrast
with the other styles of movement, which require disruption
of the displaced mass or independent movements of portions
of the mass.
1.4.2 Rate of Landslide Movement
The IUGS Working Group (1995) modified the rate of
movement scale given in Varnes (1978, Fig. 2:1 u). The
Table 1.3 Velocity classes velocities in the table indicate boundaries
between classes
Class Description velocity In mm/sec
7 Extremely rapid 5 × 103
—— ————— 5 m/sec
6 Very rapid 50
—— ————— 3 m/min
5 Rapid 0.5
—— ————— 1.8 m/hr
4 Moderate 5 × 10−3
—— ————— 3 m/week
3 Slow 50 × 10−6
—— ————— 1.6 m/year
2 Very slow 0.5 × 10−6
—— ————— 16 mm/year
1 Extremely slow
1 Using the Working Classification of Landslides 11

Table 1.4 Consequences of landslides in different velocity classes

Landslide velocity Probable destructive significance
class
7 Catastrophe of major violence. Buildings destroyed by impact of displaced material. Many deaths. Escape unlikely
6 Some lives lost, velocity too great to permit all persons to escape
5 Escape evacuation possible. Structures, possessions and equipment destroyed
4 Some temporary and insensitive structures can be temporarily maintained
3 Remedial construction can be undertaken during movement. Insensitive structures can be maintained with frequent
maintenance work if the total movement is not large during a particular acceleration phase
2 Some permanent structures undamaged by the movement
1 Imperceptible without instruments. Construction possible with precautions

seven divisions of the scale are now adjusted to increase in References

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1.5 Discussion
After identifying the materials forming the natural slope we
are interested in, we might then identify the natural and
artificial processes that might lead to its instability. We
should then be able to hypothesize a plausible landslide type
for the slope by comparison with movements of similar
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throughout the extents of the particular materials and pro-
cesses that concern us. Studies of the physical environment
of the slope are also useful. Together these might constitute a
hazard analysis, the initial stage of a risk assessment (Fell
et al. 2005).
Acknowledgments The former Chairman of the dissolved Interna-
tional Union of Geological Sciences UNESCO Working Party on
World Landslide Inventory gave permission to reproduce Tables 1.1,
1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 from the Working Party’s publications. We thank
Dr. C.D.Martin for discussions and Dr.T.Keegan for suggestions on
states of activity. A more detailed edition of this paper is available from
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