2017 Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 125-133
Main road 3, a major arterial road in Ethiopia, steeply climbs nearly 1, 500 meters over 40 kilometers through the Abay Gorge. It is plagued by landslides in the rainy season. Some of these are up to two kilometers wide, jeopardizing this vital link. To fundamentally solve this problem it is necessary to implement appropriate countermeasures after clarifying the mechanisms that trigger landslides in this stretch of road.
Therefore the authors have implemented a slope disaster inspection on roads to clarify the mechanisms in the Abay Gorge. To prepare the slope disaster inspection sheet in Ethiopia where there are few engineers who have experience on slope disaster inspection, the authors have discussed the factors and their contributions that affect on landslides and decided the item in the list on the slope disaster inspection sheet using multivariate statistical analysis, namely quantification theory.
Through the multivariate statistical analysis, the following was observed : `result of aerial photo interpretation' and `main rock formation of landslide body' should be paid attention, which affect the hazard of landslide greatly in the area. Based on the analysis, new evaluation sheets are proposed for the slope inspection on the roads, which are suitable to the conditions of geology and topography in Ethiopia. The authors have also ranked them into five levels from A (extremely high hazard) to E (lowest hazard) on the landslides in the Abay Gorge.
