A Review of Impacts of Climate Change on Slope Stability

Climate change has become an increasingly pressing issue that needs to be tackled by scientists and researchers around the globe in recent years. However, huge uncertainties are still associated with climate change and its impacts on our world as it is extremely difficult to quantify the effects of climate change. It is important to study the impact of climate change on slope stability in order to ensure that existing slopes and their design standards are able to accommodate the changes in environmental factors such as rainfall and temperature under climate change. The main objective of this paper is to review the relationship between rainfall variations under climate change and its impacts on slope stability. This review study revealed that there are still not many studies investigating the direct impacts of climate change on slope stability, particularly in the tropical regions, which receive intense monsoon rainfalls. Changes in extreme weather events under climate change have also resulted in the development of desiccated cracks in the soil. Studies have shown prolonged drying and intensified rainfall across various regions in which these phenomena would greatly affect the extent of cracks development in soil under repetitive wet-dry cycles. Consequently, this would result in excessive infiltrations into soil slopes during intense rainfall periods.