Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 74 ›› Issue (11): 2303-2313.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201911008

• Spatio-temporal Coupling of Water-land Elements in Mountainous Areas • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatial pattern of debris-flow catchments and the rainfall amount of triggering debris flows in the Hengduan Mountains region

HU Kaiheng1,2(),WEI Li1,2,3,LIU Shuang1,2,LI Xiuzhen1,2   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Process, CAS, Chengdu 610041, China
    2. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS, Chengdu 610041, China
    3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2019-05-14 Revised:2019-10-09 Online:2019-11-25 Published:2019-11-01
  • Contact: HU Kaiheng E-mail:khhu@imde.ac.cn
  • Supported by:
    The National Basic Research Program of China(2015CB452704);National Key R&D Program of China(2018YFC1505205);Major Research Program of Ecological Prevention against Geohazards in the Jiuzhaigou Earthquake Area by Sichuan Government(KJ-2018-23)

Abstract:

Environmental factors determine the spatial and temporal distribution of debris flows. Understanding the relationship between debris flows and their effective factors is important for debris flows risk assessment at regional scale. In this paper, geographic detectors and gray correlation analysis are used to explore the relationship between 11 influencing factors, including precipitation, climate, landforms, geology, land cover type, soil thickness and topographic wetness, and the spatial distribution of debris flows-prone catchments, as well as the spatial and temporal correlation between precipitation and debris flows disasters in the Hengduan Mountains region. The results show that the topographic wetness index is the most dominant factor controlling the spatial distribution of the catchments, followed by topographic relief and soil thickness. Temporal correlation between debris flows disasters and precipitation characteristics has large regional heterogeneity. The rainfall characteristics of debris flows disaster events in different regions exhibit significant difference. The frequency of debris flows with rainfall, topographic wetness, topographic relief and soil thickness in the Hengduan Mountains region varies significantly in different zones, which indicates that not only the rainfall but also the other factors controlling the spatial pattern of debris flows should be reflected in debris flows early warning model in the region.

Key words: debris flows disaster, environmental factors, rainfall characteristics, geographical detectors, grey relational analysis