Preliminary Study on Mud-Rock Flows Channel of the Bailuxi River, Wuxi County, China

Abstract

The Bailuxi River is located in the mountainside of Dabashan Mountain and to the west side of the watershed of the Daninghe River and the Duhe River. It is at the southeast edge of an area of heavy rainfall in the centre of the Qinba mountainous region. For reasons of its climatic environment and the existence of a sufficient supply of sediments and large reserves of such in the river reaches, the human engineering and economic activity have become more and more intensive, resulting in an increase in hazardous environmental and geological conditions for mud-rock flows to occur in the Bailuxi River. Since the mud-rock flows there constitutes a direct threat to the inhabitants’ life and property safety in Bailu Town and its bank downriver of the Daninghe River, attention and concern for the hazardous condition are necessary. Through investigation, it has been found that the mud-rock flow channel of the Bailuxi River consists of the main mud-rock flow channel and its branches, the Yangjiawan branch of the mud-rock flow channel being the largest, the most dangerous, and potentially the most damaging one. The branch channel is a frequent mud-rock flow channel at a small scale, but during certain conditions, a large mud-rock flow at a considerably large scale could possibly occur. The primary channel flow of a large-sized scale is of low frequency and it is only triggered by large-sized mud-rock flows occurring in the branch channels. The deposit in the area of Bailu is the accumulation of the mud-rock flows that have erupted previously.