Numerical analysis of in-situ water content and temperature variations due to effects of grass

Abstract

Vegetation has been recognized as an environmentally friendly method for stabilizing soil slope. Whereas hydrological effects of vegetation are experimentally investigated by several researchers, the field studies are rarely conducted and gain less attention. In this research, a field study was carried out on unsaturated soil slopes. The field measurement consisted of two neighboring cut slopes, namely bare soil slope and grassed soil slope. Field measurement results reveal that grass has influences on reducing and stabilizing the soil water content, increasing matric suction, and lowering soil temperature in warm seasons. The approach of coupled nonisothermal-seepage numerical analysis for unsaturated soil slope considering impacts of grass is suggested. The good agreement in comparisons between simulation and field measurement indicates that the proposed approach is useful to consider the influences of grass on the soil behaviors against climate variations.