Recent catastrophic landslides and mitigation in China

Increasing population density and development of mountainous terrain have brought human settlements within reach of landslide hazards. In recent years, due to the shortening of return period for severe natural events such as heavy rainfall, snowline retreating, great earthquake together with human activities, catastrophic landslides happened more frequently than before, resulting in large-scale casualties due to the increasing occurrences of rapid long-runout rock avalanches, especially in China. This paper presents some typical case histories related to the catastrophic landslides, including the Guanling rock avalanche, the Yigong rockslide-debris avalanche, the Wenchuan earthquake-induced landslides and the Danba landslide. They occurred in the last decade. Moreover, taking the Jiweishan catastrophic rockslide-fragment flow and the Yuhuangge landslide located in the new Wushan Town for examples, early-warning system and risk management on landslides are discussed in detail.