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La Josefina Landslide Dam and Its Catastrophic Breaching in the Andean Region of Ecuador

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Book cover Natural and Artificial Rockslide Dams

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences ((LNEARTH,volume 133))

Abstract

Abstract On March 29, 1993, a large landslide (20 million m3) took place northeast of Cuenca city in Ecuador, damming the Paute river. During the next 33 days, an artificial lake upstream of the blockage (200 million m3) was formed, flooding fertile land and destroying houses, roads, railways and a regional thermoelectric plant. On April 23, the water began to overflow out of the dam through a channel which was excavated in order to reduce the water volume accumulated in the lake and avoid catastrophic damages downstream. On May 1, the breaching of the dam produced a peak discharge of 10,000 m3/s, destroying roads, house, bridges, etc., downstream. This work describes the rupture of the dam and the routing of the flood wave. Models used to predict the rupture time and peak discharge of the flood are also compared. In addition, some aspects of the crisis management are presented.

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Acknowledgements

We want to express our gratitude to Patricia Mothes and Remigio Galárraga for their contribution in improving the final English version of the manuscript. We want also to thank Giovanni Taco and O. Zevallos P. for their help in the typing of this essay, and Victor López for his contributions to the drawing of the graphs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador

    Galo Plaza

  2. Empresa Metropolitana de Alcantarillado y Agua Potable de Quito, Quito, Ecuador

    Othon Zevallos

  3. Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Quito, Ecuador

    Éric Cadier

Authors
  1. Galo Plaza
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  2. Othon Zevallos
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  3. Éric Cadier
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Galo Plaza .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Earth & Environmental Sciences, Landslide Research Program, University of Waterloo, University Avenue W. 200, Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Ontario, Canada

    Stephen G. Evans

  2. Dept. Geophysics, Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim, 7491, Norway

    Reginald L. Hermanns

  3. Institute of the Geospheres Dynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskiy Avenue 38, Moscow, 119334, Russian Federation

    Alexander Strom

  4. Dipto. Scienze della Terra, Università Roma, La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, Roma, 00185, Italy

    Gabriele Scarascia-Mugnozza

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Plaza, G., Zevallos, O., Cadier, É. (2011). La Josefina Landslide Dam and Its Catastrophic Breaching in the Andean Region of Ecuador. In: Evans, S., Hermanns, R., Strom, A., Scarascia-Mugnozza, G. (eds) Natural and Artificial Rockslide Dams. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, vol 133. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04764-0_14

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