Thermo-hydro-mechanical modelling of soil settlements induced by soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions

The effect of soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions on the soil water content variations and the induced settlements are studied using a numerical approach. A two dimensional model of soil-vegetation-atmosphere interaction is developed in θ-STOCK finite element program. The soil heat, the infiltration and the evaporation from the soil surface are calculated using water balance and energy balance equations. The model parameters are standard meteorological data, soil characteristics and canopy parameters. The main advantage of this approach is the settlement prediction using only the soil physical properties, e.g. soil water retention and shrinkage curves, with no need to continuous in-situ measurements of water content or suction. An instrumented site is modelled to verify the model capacities. The results show a good accordance between calculation and measurements.

► The effect of soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions on the thermo-hydro-mechanical response of a swelling-shrinking clayey soil is studied.
► A two-dimensional model is developed to describe the climatic and vegetal effects on the water content variations and the displacements of an unsaturated medium.
► The soil-vegetation-atmosphere interaction model has been verified based on a comparison of the calculated settlements and the in-situ measurements available for an instrumented site. The results show the pertinence of the adopted numerical approach.