ICL/IPL Activities
Landslides (2009) 6:367–371 Matjaž Mikoš . Ana Petkovšek . Bojan Majes
DOI 10.1007/s10346-009-0171-6
Received: 2 September 2009
Accepted: 14 September 2009 Mechanisms of landslides in over-consolidated clays
Published online: 8 October 2009
© Springer-Verlag 2009 and flysch
Activity scale and targeted region: national
Abstract In this report, we present the situation in Slovenia,
Europe with regard to natural hazards, emphasizing land-sliding
problems. Furthermore, we shortly present the University of
Ljubljana and the Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering as the
new member of the ICL that was selected to be the World Center of
Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction for the period of 2008–
2013 with the project entitled “Mechanisms of landslides in over-
consolidated clays and flysch” in the Activity scale and targeted
region as “National.” Some preliminary results of this project are
shortly presented at the end.
Keywords Landslide . Natural hazards . Field monitoring .
Soil suction . Slovenia
Natural hazards in Slovenia
The Republic of Slovenia being an independent and sovereign
country since 25 June 1991 is located in Central Europe between the
Alps and the Adriatic Sea. It has an area of 20,273 km2, bordering
Italy (232 km), Austria (318 km), Hungary (102 km), and Croatia
(670 km). Its coastline on the Adriatic Sea is 46 km long. In 2005, for
the first time, Slovenia had more than two million inhabitants (in
2007, population density of close to 100/km2 compared to the world
average of 43/km2) in over 6,000 settlements, half of them with up to
100 inhabitants only. The city of Ljubljana as the capital has less
than 300,000 inhabitants (12.8% of the state population). The daily
migration to workplaces and schools is high, and it is important for
the national economy and living conditions in general. A network
of 1,200 km of railways and close to 39,000 km of roads connects the
country. There is also high-transit traffic through the country.
Tourism is one of the strategic fields of development. Recreation on
water (canyoning, canoeing, white water rafting, and fishing)
attracts more and more tourists, mostly foreign. Slovenia is known
for its varied landscape and high biodiversity. The Slovenian
territory, which represents only 0.014% of our planet’s land surface
is home to 2% of all known species of plants and animals.
The estimated direct (economic) damages caused by natural
disasters in Slovenia are on average above 2% of GDP (in 2008 the
GDP was 37.1 billion Euro or over 18,000 Euro per capita—that is
around 28,000 USD per capita—reaching over 90% of the average
of the EU-27) with some exceptional years, as in 1990, when the
flood-related economic damage itself, caused by heavy floods, was
above 20% of the annual national GDP. Earthquakes are the most
destructive natural hazards in Slovenia. The strongest historical
earthquake with the epicenter in the territory of Slovenia happened
on 26 March 1511 in the vicinity of Idrija (second largest mercury
mine in Europe) with the estimated magnitude of 6.9. The
strongest earthquake in the twentieth century was registered on 12
April 1998 with the surface magnitude MS =5.7 and the estimated
intensity after the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) between
VII and VIII.
Most hazardous natural disasters apart from earthquakes, fires in
the natural environment (on average more than 1,000 in a year), and
droughts/heat waves (causing the highest damages in the last
decade!) are rock falls, landslides, and fluvial erosion processes in
many torrents and rivers. Mass wasting and soil erosion are
noticeable on 43% of Slovenian territory (around 8,800 km2 of labile
and potentially unstable slopes). This area is crisscrossed by some
8,000 km of torrents that drain nearly 400 torrential watersheds.
Floods and landslides are complex natural phenomena caused by
local natural conditions and, with further development, more and
more influenced by human activity. In Slovenia, generally speaking,
unfavorable geological conditions, steep terrain and abundance of
precipitation (rainfall) are the major causes of these disasters.
Practically two thirds of Slovenian territory are subjected to
different erosion processes and slope instability phenomena, as
shown, e.g., on the general landslide susceptibility map and the
general earthquake-induced landslide hazard map of Slovenia. Slope
instabilities in rocks and soils in Slovenia are bound above all to
geological and morphological conditions. In the Alps, rock slides and
rock falls are frequent. For example, numerous rock falls and slides
were observed in western Slovenia during large earthquakes in the
years 1976, 1998, and 2004 (Mikoš and Fazarinc 2000; Mikoš et al.
2006b). Rock falls are also present in those areas, where rivers have
incised through hard carbonaceous rocks and made gorges into the
lower-lying soft clastic sediments. Landslides are present first of all
on hillsides and slopes of heights of the perialpine terrain composed
of carbonaceous and clastic rocks. Large landslides in such rock
strata are frequent, where the thick weathered surface layer is
sliding. Beneath the steep slopes made of carbonaceous rocks,
alluvial fans, scree, and talus are frequent and strongly subjected
to sliding, especially where overlying the clastic rocks. In Eastern
Slovenia, hilly terrain with relatively gentle slopes and wide valleys
is composed of clayey and silty soils, in some places also marl,
sand, and clayey gravel. These soft rocks are subjected to strong
weathering and, as such, form the basis for frequent soil slumps
in thick weathered surface layers and along the inclined clayey
layers. Landslide-safe areas in Slovenia are karst plateaus and
karst heights, wide lowland basins and alluvial valleys.
Land sliding is not only a threat for buildings of any kind and to
infrastructure in general but also changes the morphology of the
terrain. Landslides often release (destabilize) large amounts of
sediments, which not only stay on slopes but also reach the fluvial
network. Under catastrophic conditions, land sliding may lead to a
torrential outburst, debris flow, or dam-brake wave, as was in
November 2000 the case with the first Stože debris landslide that
turned after 35 h into deadly debris flow (Mikoš et al. 2004).
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 ICL/IPL Activities
Minor landslides in Slovenia are of different forms (mainly
shallow landslides, with abundance of smaller slides and slumps).
They are mainly triggered during short and intense rainfall events
or after prolonged rainfall periods of moderate intensities. The
order of their average volume is 1,000 m3, rarely 10,000 m3. Some of
them have already been stabilized using technical measures, others
are still active. Unfavorable geological conditions are the main
causes for such a high slide density (>1 slide per 10 km2), despite
good vegetation conditions in Slovenia. Such high slide density was
confirmed in perialpine Slovenia using multivariate statistical
methods (Komac 2006). As a result of such an approach, a
landslide susceptibility map of Slovenia was prepared (Fig. 1). The
next contributing factor is the abundance of precipitation and high
number of days with daily totals above 20 mm. Many slumps and
slides are triggered during short and intense rainfall events or after
prolonged rainfall periods of moderate intensities.
In Slovenia, over 6,000 active and mainly minor landslides
have been registered so far. Not all of them are part of the official
landslide inventory cadastre that was incorporated into the GIS
environment, i.e., software application called GIS-UJME, devel-
oped and maintained by the Ministry of Defense. The landslide
inventory maps include more than 3,500 landslides, but not rock
falls and rock slides, and are one of the 85 geo-referenced
databases incorporated in this system—such as databases on
infrastructure, flood hazard maps, avalanche cadastre, earthquake
hazard maps, fire hazard maps, etc. This electronic database is
used as an internet application by the Ministry of Defense in
regional Notification Centers for coordination purposes during
immediate disaster relief actions led by the Civil Defense units,
and as an intranet application being the information basis for
their training in the Protection and Rescue Education and
Training Center and for preparation of civil protection and
disaster relief plans in the Administration of the Republic of
Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief. Unfortunately,
this database is (still) not directly used for planning activities in
Fig. 1 Landslide susceptibility map of
Slovenia (from Komac and Ribičič
2006)
368 Landslides 6 • (2009)
the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning in the field
of hazard prevention.
University of Ljubljana and Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering
University of Ljubljana (UL; http://www.uni-lj.si/en/) is the oldest
university in Slovenia, established in 1919 after the break apart of
the Austrian–Hungarian monarchy and the constitution of the first
Yugoslavia. In 2009, the UL is celebrating its 90th anniversary. The
UL kept its foremost position also after the break-up of the second
Yugoslavia in 1991 when Slovenia proclaimed its independence and
gained international recognition. Nowadays, the UL is hosting
more than 50,000 full-time and part-time students and is a full
university covering all disciplines, being among largest universities
in Europe. The UL is trying to find its place among the best world
universities and was classified to the top 500 World Universities
and to the top 200 European Universities on the last few Shanghai’s
rankings (ARWU), and achieved the 201st rank in the world and
the 63rd rank in Europe on the webometric’s ranking of world
universities in 2009. The Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering
(UL FGG; http://www2.fgg.uni-lj.si/) was also established in 1919
and is nowadays hosting more than 2,000 full-time and part-time
students. Its orientation in the last years went beyond classical field
of civil engineering towards environmental civil engineering,
offering study programs in such disciplines. Three chairs out of
21 chairs or institutes on the FGG have been involved into landslide
mitigation in Slovenia. These teaching and research units are:
Chair of Soil Mechanics with Laboratory led by Prof. Majes, Chair
of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering led by Prof. Mikoš, and
Chair of Fluid Mechanics with laboratory led by Prof. Četina.
Since the very beginning, Chair of Soil Mechanics, founded by
Prof. Lujo Šuklje, has been involved into investigations, trying to
improve knowledge and understanding of triggering mechanisms
of landslides, which occurred periodically at the same territories,
mostly built from Tertiary over-consolidated clays and Permocar-
boniferous claystones and shales. The first rotational shear

Fig. 2 The first rotational shear apparatus designed by Prof. Šuklje in 1949
apparatus was designed by Prof. Šuklje and built in local workshop
in 1949 (Fig. 2). Later on, the laboratory testing equipment has been
complemented by different types of conventional static direct and
tri-axial shear devices as well as with the cyclic simple shear
apparatus. Since 2004, the softening of clay shales and over-
consolidated clays together with the reduction of soil matrix
suction has been recognized as one of the most important triggering
mechanisms on large landslides in flysch. The development of soil
suction measurement in laboratory and soil suction monitoring on
site significantly improved the surveillance over the large landslide
area, like the Slano Blato landslide (Petkovšek et al. 2009).
Collaboration of the UL FGG in the efforts for mitigation of large
landslides in Slovenia
Since 2000 or after the large debris flow in Log pod Mangartom, a
special governmental (inter-ministerial) commission was leading
all activities on large landslides. This commission was supported
Fig. 3 A view from the upper part of the Slano Blato landslide in 2008 with the
reinforced-concrete shafts and the soil suction monitoring sites
Fig. 4 Variations of the soil suction results (point ii) in the period from January 1
to December 31, 2008. Gray lines refer to the periods of intensive mass movements
by a four-member professional committee (experts in the fields of
engineering geology, geotechnical, and hydraulic engineering—
two committee members were the authors of this report). An
official definition of “a large landslide” was approved that an active
landslide should be proclaimed “large” if it threatens human lives
in buildings or when the assessed costs for its mitigation are larger
than approx. one million USD.
Experiences with mitigation of large landslides were rare until
the last decade, when four large landslides (Stože, Slano Blato,
Strug, and Macesnik) with volumes of the order of one million cubic
meters were triggered and urged for fast mitigation. They can be
placed in the category of rainfall-induced landslides that became
active in unfavorable geological conditions (Mikoš and Majes
2008). The UL FGG investigated earthen materials from these
landslides and tried to determine their common geomechanical
characteristics in soil mechanics laboratory (Majes et al. 2002).
The Stože Landslide with a volume of around 1,500,000 m3 was
initiated in November 2000 as a debris landslide on the Stože slope
in morainic material above the village of Log pod Mangartom in W
Fig. 5 The undrained strength as a function of soil suction for remolded samples
from the monitoring profile (ii), shown on Fig. 3
Landslides 6 • (2009) 369
 ICL/IPL Activities
Slovenia after a wet autumn period with no snow accumulation but
rising runoff coefficients. It turned from a debris landslide on a hill
slope into a catastrophic debris flow due to low inertial shear stress
caused by high water content. The UL FGG analyzed hydrological
triggering factors of the disaster (Mikoš et al. 2004), helped by a
one- and two-dimensional numerical modeling of the 2000 debris
flow (Četina et al. 2006), used two-dimensional numerical
modeling for optimizing proposed hydraulic river engineering
measures in the devastated area (Fazarinc et al. 2006), and helped
developing a proper debris-flow hazard map of the village Log pod
Mangartom (Mikoš et al. 2006d).
The Slano Blato Landslide also formed in fossil landslide masses
on a contact of calcareous and flysch formations during wet
autumn period in November 2000. It is ever since progressively
enlarging behind the main scarp via retrogressive slumping of new
and freshly weathered material that due to high water pore
pressures turns into a viscous earth flow. The UL FGG provided a
historical analysis of this old landslide and helped with planning
and designing of proposed mitigation measures (Logar et al. 2005).
The Strug Landslide is a very good example of a complex slope
movement, which started in December 2001 as a rockslide with a
consequent rock fall that triggered secondary landslides and
caused occasional debris flows. In 2002, over 20 debris flows were
registered in the village of Koseč below the Strug Landslide, mainly
on days with a daily rainfall accumulation of 20 to 30 mm. In 2003
and 2004, no further debris flows could be observed; therefore,
these events in the Strug landslide area were defined as material
and not rainfall driven events. The UL FGG provided hydrological
measurements and field measurements of erosion processes in the
landslide area (Mikoš et al. 2005a), helped by an analysis of this
complex landslide (Mikoš et al. 2006a), performed one- and two-
dimensional numerical modeling of debris flows in the village of
Koseč to develop a hazard map and to propose effective technical
countermeasures (Mikoš et al. 2006c), and finally performed a
study on estimated debris-flow magnitudes in selected torrential
watersheds in Slovenia (Sodnik and Mikoš 2006).
The Macesnik Landslide above the village of Solčava in N
Slovenia near the border with Austria was triggered in autumn
1989. Until 1994, there were no activities on the landslide. In the
period between 1994 and 1998, the advancement of the landslide on
the slope was utmost intense. Firstly, the landslide destroyed state
road and a new pontoon bridge had to be built instead. In 1996, the
landslide advanced and destroyed a turn on the same state road. In
1999, a large rock outcrop stopped the advancement of the
landslide. Further advancement would possibly destroy several
farmhouses on its way down the valley towards the Savinja River.
Possible damming of this alpine river would cause a catastrophic
flooding. The UL FGG helped with hydrological field measure-
ments and by proposing effective technical countermeasures
(Mikoš et al. 2005b).
Initial activities of the project mechanisms of landslides
in over-consolidated clays and flysch
These shortly presented experiences together with the ones gained
during international cooperation in different European and
bilateral research projects in the field of natural hazards led to
the membership of the UL FGG in the International Consortium on
Landslides (ICL), as effective in 2008. One of the deciding
moments for our integration into ICL was fruitful cooperation
with Prof. Hideaki Marui of Niigata University, the President of the
370 Landslides 6 • (2009)
Japan Landslide Society, within the framework of the International
Research Society INTERPRAEVENT (http://www.interpraevent.
at/), where Prof. Mikoš served two 4-year periods as the Chairman
of its Scientific-Technical Committee. During the First World
Landslide Forum 2008, UL FGG was selected to the World Center
of Excellence on Landslide Risk reduction for the period of 2008–
2013 with the project entitled Mechanisms of landslides in over-
consolidated clays and flysch (principle researcher Prof. Majes) in
the Activity scale and targeted region as “National” (Sassa 2009).
We chose the Slano Blato landslide as the field experimental site
for this project. During dry periods, this landslide behaves like a
group of several separate slow moving landslides. On the contrary,
during wet periods, it moves mainly as a viscous earth flow with
occurrences of rapid mudflows. The transformation from a slow
moving landslide to a much faster viscous earth flow depends
strongly on the combination of the rainfall infiltration in the
landslide area itself as well as the water inflow from the bedrock.
Instead of monitoring ground water levels and horizontal ground
inclination in the short life time inclinometers, a new monitoring
system, using soil suction measurements with the Watermark
sensors was installed in 2007 (Fig. 3). The soil suction and ground
temperature data are taken continuously, together with the data from
the weather station and the GPS position of sensors. The measured data
are available online, together with the TV camera shots observing the
landslide surface 24 h/day. Field monitoring data show clear connec-
tion between rainfalls, soil suction, and development of the surface soil
instabilities (Fig. 4). Soil suction was also related to undrained strength
of remolded soil samples in geotechnical tests (Fig. 5).
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