Slopes

The inputted values do a good job of modeling the halloween slide of 2019 based on the land use changes that have been seen on Riverside Avenue. As these areas have a lot of fill and loose soil, I chose a cohesion value of zero, as it is unlikely that there was significant root cohesion. The variable that seems to make the greatest amount of change in this model is the h' saturation value. I chose a fairly high value in the first model, as there was a significant amount of rain (4 inches) that night, as well as runoff water from the surrounding impervious surfaces.

I chose to run a few different models, each with a slightly different h' value. Using different values for saturation is important because the actual level of the water table that night is unknown, and the saturation level carries a lot of weight in the driving and resisting forces. We see that inbetween 1 and 2 meters of soil saturation provides the difference between a slide and a safe slope.