Ricerc@Sapienza

Mass Rock Creep (MRC) process is one of the main factors responsible for damaging rock masses in transient tectonically active mountain landscapes. This process encompasses entire hillslopes or valley flanks acting on a large time-space scale, leading as a response to gravitational disequilibrium to slope failures that can generate huge rock avalanches.
Although the limit of theories is represented by the difficulty of accurately estimating the starting time of the process as well as of discriminating the distinct phases, reconstructing the morpho-evolutionary history of the river valley slope is a key to shed light on the evolution of the gravity-induced deformations. Experience in back-analysis of huge rock-failure confirms this requirement stressing the importance of a detailed 2D sequential evolutionary model.
The aim of this project is to set up a quantitative multi-modeling to reconstruct the nonlinearity of the time-displacements relationships as well as the accurate history of the past erosion rate evolution and its nexus with the deforming slopes.
The multi-modeling framework incorporates contributions from morpho-evolutionary modeling, detailed engineering-geological modeling, landscape evolution modeling, and time-dependent stress-strain numerical modeling to analyze the rheological evolution of river valley slopes. The methodological structure is cyclical in that the output of a model becomes the input for the next one.
Experiencing such a multi-modeling approach allows to include in a unique methodology the back-analysis of occurred landslide events and the forecast of slope evolution by considering possible scenarios of suitable destabilizing actions (forced modeling). Moreover, the computed strain rates can be considered to establish multi-hazard scenarios posed by potential evolution of ongoing gravity-induced deformations.