Sedimentary impacts from landslides in the Tachia River Basin, Taiwan

A case study of coseismic landslides and post-seismic sedimentary impacts of landslides due to rainfall events was conducted in the Tachia River basin, Taichung County, central Taiwan. About 3000 coseismic landslides occurred in the basin during the ML 7.3 Chi-Chi earthquake in 1999. The deposits from these landslides provided material for numerous debris flows induced by subsequent rainfall events. The estimated 4.1 × 107 m3 of landslide debris produced in the upland area caused sediment deposition in riverbeds, and flash floods inundated downstream areas with sediment during torrential rains. The landslide frequency-size distributions for the coseismic landslides and the subsequent rainfall-induced landslides were analyzed to determine the sediment budgets of the post-seismic geomorphic response in the landslide-dominated basin. Both the coseismic and the rainfall-induced landslides show a power–law frequency-size distribution with a rollover. It was found that the rainfall-induced landslide magnitude was smaller than the coseismic one, and that both have comparable negative scaling exponents in cumulative form, of about − 2.0 for larger landslides (> 10− 2 km2). This may be attributed to ongoing movement or reactivation of old landslides, and a natural stabilisation of small landslides between 10− 4 and 10− 2 km2. It is proposed that the characteristics of geological formations and rainfall as well as changes in landslide area are reflected in the power–law distribution.