Abstract: In this article, the modeling of infiltration–induced landslides, in unsaturated soils using
the radial basis function (RBF) method, is presented. A novel approach based on the RBF method is
proposed to deal with the nonlinear hydrological process in the unsaturated zone. The RBF is first
adopted for curve fitting to build the representation of the soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) that
corresponds to the best estimate of the relationship between volumetric water content and matric
suction. The meshless method with the RBF is then applied to solve the nonlinear Richards equation
with the infiltration boundary conditions. Additionally, the fictitious time integration method is
adopted in the meshless method with the RBF for tackling the nonlinearity. To model the stability of
the landslide, the stability analysis of infinite slope coupled with the nonlinear Richards equation
considering the fluctuation of transient pore water pressure is developed. The validation of the
proposed approach is accomplished by comparing with exact solutions. The comparative analysis of
the factor of safety using the Gardner model, the van Genuchten model and the proposed RBF model
is provided. Results illustrate that the RBF is advantageous for reconstructing the SWCC with better
estimation of the relationship than conventional parametric Gardner and van Genuchten models. We
also found that the computed safety factors significantly depend on the representation of the SWCC.
Finally, the stability of landslides is highly affected by matric potential in unsaturated soils during
the infiltration process.
Keywords: unsaturated soil; nonlinear Richards equation; radial basis function; meshless method;
soil water characteristic curve
https://doi.org/10.3390/w14071036
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/14/7/1036
