The spatial response pattern of coseismic landslides induced by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake to the surface deformation and Coulomb stress change revealed from InSAR observations

Abstract The 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake triggered plenty of coseismic giant landslides, which resulted in almost one third of total fatalities and economic losses during the event. Previous studies investigated the spatial relations between landslide distribution and topographic and seismic factors such as elevation, slope aspect, distance from rupture trace and seismic intensity. However, few studies are performed exploring the effects of coseismic surface deformation and Coulomb stress change on triggering landslides due to lack of adequate deformation observation data and stress calculation model for slope failure. In this study, we develop an envelope method to map an entire coseismic deformation field in both near- and far-field areas of seismic faults through the data fusion from InSAR and pixel offset-tracking (POT) techniques. The change in static Coulomb stress (SCS) acting on coseismic landsliding surface caused by the event is determined using the faulting model derived from the joint inversion of InSAR and GPS data, and also with the use of the elastic half-space dislocation theory and the generalized Hook’s law. The analysis suggests the spatial response pattern of seismic landslides to the coseismic ground motion and stress change, especially in the vicinity of fault rupture trace. The landslide density dramatically rises with the stress increase within the range from Yingxiu to Beichuan areas along the major surface rupture. Moving further and eastward along the fault strike, most of large landslides are triggered as the zone of positive SCS change narrows. Moreover, the high-magnitude surface displacements are possibly responsible for the giant landsliding events in the easternmost section. From the analysis of the stress transfer, the occurrence of landslides in the study area is largely controlled by the Yingxiu-Beichuan fault with overwhelming rupture length and fault slip, yet the Pengguan fault indeed shows dominance in the area between the two faults. The results show that coseismic surface deformation (derived from InSAR data in this study) and static Coulomb stress change can serve as two significant controlling factors on seismic landslide distribution and that the stress factor seems more significant in the vicinity of surface rupture.