Relationship between river bank stability and hydrological processes using in situ measurement data

Abstract

Many river banks throughout the world are prone to landslides; therefore, serious efforts are made to develop landslide early warning systems. This study presents a method by which the stability changes of the river banks can be continuously monitored; necessary measures can be taken in time to reduce the damage. The method was tested in Dunaszekcső (Hungary), where the high loess bank of the River Danube has been intensively moving since 2007. The tilts of the high bank were measured by two borehole tiltmeters. The connection between tilt values and the river- and groundwater-level variations was investigated by multivariable and moving window regression analyses on the basis of a 6-year-long observation from 2011 to 2016. The results show that increasing regression coefficients mean decreasing stability of the high river bank, so the developed method can be used for continuous supervision of the high bank stability. The method is also suitable for studying the causes of motion processes. Investigations showed clearly that the effect of groundwater table variations is two orders of magnitude higher than the water-level variations of the River Danube. In addition to the erosion of the river, various small tilts of the stable and unstable parts also contribute to the arising of new cracks in the stable part, decreasing its width.