Full Length Article
Multi-perspective analysis on rainfall-induced spatial response of soil suction in a vegetated soil

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2022.02.009Get rights and content
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Abstract

In this study, an intelligent monitoring platform is established for continuous quantification of soil, vegetation, and atmosphere parameters (e.g. soil suction, rainfall, tree canopy, air temperature, and wind speed) to provide an efficient dataset for modeling suction response through machine learning. Two characteristic parameters representing suction response during wetting processes, i.e. response time and mean reduction rate of suction, are formulated through multi-gene genetic programming (MGGP) using eight selected influential parameters including depth, initial soil suction, vegetation- and atmosphere-related parameters. An error standard–based performance evaluation indicated that MGGP has appreciable potential for model development when working with even fewer than 100 data. Global sensitivity analysis revealed the importance of tree canopy and mean wind speed to estimation of response time and indicated that initial soil suction and rainfall amount have an important effect on the estimated suction reduction rate during a wetting process. Uncertainty assessment indicated that the two MGGP models describing suction response after rainfall are reliable and robust under uncertain conditions. In-depth analysis of spatial variations in suction response validated the robustness of two obtained MGGP models in prediction of suction variation characteristics under natural conditions.

Keywords

Global sensitivity analysis (GSA)
Multi-gene genetic programming (MGGP)
Soil suction response
Spatial variation of suction response
Uncertainty assessment

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Dr. Wanhuan Zhou is currently a professor in geotechnical engineering at the University of Macau, China. She has acted as the Principal Investigator (PI) on 15 research projects, including the 2020 Excellent Young Scientists Fund (HK & Macau) from National Natural Science Foundation of China. She has published more than 80 SCI indexed articles in top-ranked geotechnical journals. She also serves as an editorial board member in several top geotechnical engineering journals, such as Canadian Geotechnical Journal and International Journal of Geomechanics.

Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.