Michel Jaboyedoff

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Lausanne

We develop a user-friendly, high-performance Material Point Method (MPM) solver, MaterialPointSolver.jl, using the Julia language. The dual storage and interaction between material particles and the background grid limits the use of high-resolution models, and few solutions offer both performance and ease of use. Our backend-agnostic solver leverag...

Geological disasters frequently result from the weakening of soft rocks, with marl deterioration being particularly noteworthy. Most research on marl weathering has predominantly relied on laboratory simulations, leaving its natural behavior inadequately explored. This study investigates the impact of thermal weathering on marls at the La Cornalle...

Vulnerability assessment of the building, the most common element at risk under the impact of landslides, is significant for effective landslide risk assessment. However, the failure behaviors and related mechanisms of the building under landslide impact are often ignored in conventional vulnerability assessments. As such, a series of model tests w...

The infrared radiation temperature (IRT) variation concerning stress and crack evolution of rocks is a critical focus in rock mechanics domain and engineering disaster warning. In this paper, a methodology to extract the key IRT features related to stress and crack evolution of loaded rocks is proposed. Specifically, the wavelet denoising and recon...

Despite the prevalence and validity of the universal distinct element code (UDEC) in simulations in geotechnics domain, water-weakening process of rock models remains elusive. Prior research has made positive contributions to a presupposed link between modelling parameters and saturation degree, Sr. Nevertheless, this effort presents inaccurate res...

This research evaluates the influence of various discontinuity data acquisition methods on three-dimensional rockfall susceptibility assessments, employing a high-resolution 3D point cloud of the Špičunak rock slope in Croatia. Discontinuity mapping was conducted utilising manual and semi-automated methods. Manual mapping was done in open-source so...

Rock avalanches, characterized by rapid and high energy flows of fragmented rock material down slopes, pose significant risks in mountainous regions. Anticipating their potential impact area and run-out distance is crucial in the scope of hazard assessment. Two main approaches, empirical and numerical, are commonly employed for this purpose. Most r...

This study examines the role of advanced remote sensing technologies, such as LiDAR, SfM, GB-InSAR, and thermal imaging, in enhancing rockfall hazard assessment. These tools have revolutionized the analysis of rock structures, allowing for detailed characterization and quantification of rockfall frequency and volume, essential for accurate hazard e...

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) acquisition can be performed from satellites or from the ground by means of a so-called GB-InSAR (Ground-Based Interferometry SAR), but the signal emission and the output image geometry slightly differ between the two acquisition modes. Those differences are rarely mentioned in the literature. This paper proposes to c...

Nachvollziehbare und objektive Steinschlag-Ablöseszenarien erhöhen die Akzeptanz im Steinschlag-Risikomanagement. In diesem Projekt wurde eine Methode basierend auf «Potenzgesetz-Verteilungen» zur Herleitung von Ablöseszenarien in 15 Untersuchungsgebieten überprüft. Basierend darauf wurde das Tool «RockFreq» (RFT) erstellt, das die Herleitung von A...

This study examines the role of advanced remote sensing technologies, such as LiDAR, SfM, GB-InSAR, and thermal imaging, in enhancing rockfall hazard assessment. These tools have revolutionized the analysis of rock structures, allowing for detailed characterization and quantification of rockfall frequency and volume, essential for accurate hazard e...

Understanding the dynamics of slope instabilities is critical to mitigate the associated hazards, but their direct observation is often difficult due to their remote locations and their spontaneous nature. Seismology allows us to get unique information on these events, including on their dynamics. However, the link between the properties of these e...

Since F-N curves have been proposed, the use of consequences-frequency matrices (CFM) has been extensively used in several domains and in risk and hazard analysis. It represents a common framework for many applications, including project management and decision-making. CFM are diagrams which possess consequence and frequency classes on the axes. Th...

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) acquisition can be performed from satellites or from the ground by means of a so-called GB-InSAR (Ground-Based Interferometry SAR), but the signal emission and the output image geometry slightly differ between the two acquisition modes. Those differences are rarely mentioned in the literature. This paper proposes to c...

Foreseeing the failure of important unstable volumes is a major concern in the Alps, especially due to the presence of people and infrastructures in the valleys. The use of monitoring and remote sensing techniques is aimed at detecting potential instabilities and the combination of several techniques permits the cross-validation of the detected mov...

Los deslizamientos representan un motivo de preocupación global debido a sus impactos sociales, ecológicos y económicos. Episodios alrededor del mundo han sido asociados a causas naturales y antrópicas, sin embargo, estas últimas se encuentran poco exploradas. A pesar del desarrollo científico en los últimos años con respecto a causas vinculadas a...

Machine learning models have been widely used in landslide susceptibility prediction. However, landslide multidimensional feature extraction, model generalization ability, and prediction quantification of deep learning are still challenging. This paper proposes a new approach, the landslide density-based bidirectional long short-term memory (LD-BiL...

The reliable in situ quantification of rock mass fracturing and engineering quality is critical for slope stability, surface mining and rock engineering applications, yet it remains difficult due to the heterogeneous nature of fracture networks. We propose a method to quantify and map the slope-scale geomechanical quality of fractured rock masses u...

Because of their social, ecological, and economic impacts, landslides are an issue of global concern. Episodes occurring worldwide have been associated with natural and human causes, although the latter have been poorly explored. Despite recent scientific insight into intensive irrigation as a cause, research remains scarce. This paper focuses on d...

Rockfall simulations are often performed at various levels of detail depending on the required safety margins of rockfall-hazard-related assessments. As a pseudo benchmark, the simulation results from different models can be put side-by-side and compared with reconstructed rockfall trajectories, and mapped deposited block fragments from real events...

Debris flows cause human losses and material damages in many countries around the world. The associated risk often remains unknown because of uncertainties and the lack of data. This paper presents a semi-quantitative risk assessment of debris flow based on a Risk Matrix Approach to overcome that limitation. Three risk levels were defined through h...

The Universal Distinct Element Code (UDEC) has been rising much prevalence and is a validated technique applied to simulations in varied branches of geotechnics. Nevertheless, the characterization of water-weakening effects on a rock model remains elusive, resulting in a poor constraint referring to water-induced simulations by UDEC. In this contex...

This research paper presents a comprehensive approach to investigating dry granular collapses in three dimensions, by combining analytical, numerical, and experimental methods. The experimental investigation utilised a novel apparatus to study granular collapses in the laboratory. It is demonstrated that a quasistatic understanding of granular coll...

Process-based rockfall simulation models attempt to better emulate rockfall dynamics to different degrees. As no model is perfect, their development is often accompanied and validated by the valuable collection of rockfall databases covering a range of site geometries, rock masses, velocities, and related energies that the models are designed for....

The concepts notes were developed to facilitate discussion among various stakeholders gathered from around the world to share information on their ongoing research activities and current research projects, find collaborative activity partners, showcase research achievements, and challenge further improvements to disaster risk reduction and resilien...

Many examples of rockfall simulation software provide great flexibility to the user at the expense of a hardly achievable parameter unification. With sensitive site-dependent parameters that are hardly generalizable from the literature and case studies, the user must properly calibrate simulations for the desired site by performing back-calculation...

Rockfall causes a large number of accidents and fatalities in steep environments. A realistic quantification of rockfall risk is thus crucial for an effective prevention of damages and loss of lives. The estimation of rockfall and block volumes for different return periods thereby remains a major challenge. In this paper, we present a straightforwa...

This paper presents a new method to estimate a landslide failure surface and its volume based on a digital elevation model (DEM) using spline curves by assuming values of the tangent of the failure surface along with transversal vertical profiles. The model will give the depth of the probable failure surface plotted using the 2D grid function. We c...

Understanding the dynamics of slope instabilities is critical to mitigate the associated hazards but their direct observation is often difficult due to their remote locations and their spontaneous nature. Seismology allows to get unique information on these events, including on their dynamics. However, the link between the properties of these event...

Working with 3D point clouds offers many benefits for reducing the subjectivity of rockfall simulations at a local scale. Indeed, many “dynamic” rockfall rebound models are strongly affected by the topography and the perceived surface roughness, which can be objectively represented with detailed terrain models. This reduces the need for complex tim...

This study aims at examining the applicability of a novel approach based on species distribution models (SDMs) to establish spatial predictions of EBVs for birds based on bird diversity metrics such as the distributions of properties of key bird habitats. A major objective of this study is to build bird SDMs which can be used to derive spatial EBVs...

A realistic quantification of rockfall risk is crucial for an effective and efficient prevention of damages. The estimation of realistic block and event volumes as well as their release frequencies remain a major challenge and are often based on mere expert estimation. Based on the analysis of the rockfall frequency and volume of a wide range of ro...

Many rockfall simulation software provide great flexibility to the user at the expense of a hardly achievable parameter unification. With sensitive site-dependent parameters that are hardly generalizable from the literature and case studies, the user must properly calibrate simulations for the desired site by performing back calculation analyses. T...

The InfraRed Thermography (IRT) technique is gaining increasing popularity in the geosciences. Although several studies on the use of this technique for rock mass characterization were reported in the literature, its applicability is challenging in complex environments, characterized by poor accessibility, lithological heterogeneity, karst features...

Rockfall causes a large number of accidents and fatalities in steep environments. A realistic quantification of rockfall risk is thus crucial for an effective prevention of damages and loss of lives. The estimation of rockfall and block volumes for different return periods thereby remains a major challenge. In this paper, we present a straightforwa...

We propose an explicit GPU-based solver within the material point method (MPM) framework using graphics processing units (GPUs) to resolve elastoplastic problems under two- and three-dimensional configurations (i.e. granular collapses and slumping mechanics). Modern GPU architectures, including Ampere, Turing and Volta, provide a computational fram...

Quantitative characterization of discontinuities is fundamental to define the mechanical behavior of discontinuous rock masses. Several techniques for the semi-automatic and automatic extraction of discontinuities and their properties from raw or processed point clouds have been introduced in the literature to overcome the limits of conventional fi...

Rock slope failures in urban areas may represent a serious hazard for human life, as well as private and public property, even on the occasion of sporadic episodes. Prevention and mitigation measures indispensably require a proper rock mass characterization, which is often achieved by means of time-consuming, costly and dangerous field surveys. In...

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together recent studies related in particular to landslide monitoring and data analysis [...]

It is essential to accurately model species distributions and biodiversity in response to many ecological and conservation challenges. The primary means of reliable decision-making on conservation priority are the data on the distributions and abundance of species. However, finding data that is accurate and reliable for predicting species distribut...

We propose an explicit GPU-based solver within the material point method (MPM) framework on a single graphics pro- cessing unit (GPU) to resolve elastoplastic problems under two- and three-dimensional configurations (i.e., granular collapses and slumping mechanics). Modern GPU architectures, including Ampere, Turing and Volta, provide a computationa...

Changes in distribution and abundance of species affect the entirety of biodiversity and monitoring these changes is critical for the efficient conservation of integrity and functions of species population. However, acquiring accurate information on biodiversity over large spatial scales poses a challenge since such data is patchy and incomplete, i...

Landslides are common in the mid-hill region of Nepal where the terrain slopes are steep and consist of fragile geo-morphology. In Nepal, the casual and triggering factors of the landslides are respectively the underlying geology, intense rainfall and unplanned construction of rural roads is highly recognized, which is however less known and limite...

Numerous 3D rockfall simulation models use coarse gridded digital terrain model (DTM raster) as their topography input. Artificial surface roughness is often added to overcome the loss of details that occurs during the gridding process. Together with the use of sensitive energy damping parameters, they provide great freedom to the user at the expen...

The generation of a tsunami by a landslide is a complex phenomenon that involves landslide dynamics, wave dynamics and their interaction. Numerous lives and infrastructures around the world are threatened by this phenomenon. Predictive numerical models are a suitable tool to assess this natural hazard. However, the complexity of this phenomenon cau...

There is an increasing need for quantitative rockfall hazard and risk assessment that requires a precise definition of the terms and concepts used for this particular type of landslide. This paper suggests using terms that appear to be the most logic and explicit as possible and describes methods to derive some of the main hazards and risk descript...

Based on a previous risk calculation study conducted along a road corridor, risk is recalculated using a stochastic simulation by introducing variability into most of the parameters in the risk equation. This leads to an exceedance curve comparable to those of catastrophe models. This approach introduces uncertainty into the risk calculation in a s...

The Colombian Andean region characterizes for its tropical climate and mountainous topography, where torrential flow events have affected 1,246,705 people and caused 3,318 deaths between 1920 and 2018. Although this scenario shows the importance of torrential flow susceptibility assessment and mapping in tropical areas, there is not a clear methodo...

There is an increasing need for quantitative rockfall hazard and risk assessment that requires a precise definition of the terms and concepts used for this particular type of landslide. This paper suggests to use terms that appear to be the more logic and explicit as possible, and describes methods to derive some of the main hazard and risk descrip...

The use of 3D point clouds to improve the understanding of natural phenomena is currently applied in natural hazard investigations, including the quantification of rockfall activity. However, 3D point cloud treatment is typically accomplished using nondedicated (and not optimal) software. To fill this gap, we present an open-source, specific rockfa...

Based on a previous risk calculation study along a road corridor, risk is recalculated using stochastic simulation by introducing variability for most of the parameters in the risk equation. This leads to an exceedance curve comparable to that of catastrophe models. This approach introduces uncertainty into the risk calculation in a simple way, whi...

The Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway 58 (NH-58), in the district of Chamoli, Uttarakhand, India records several incidences of landslides and related casualties every year during intense rainfall periods. Mass movements that occurred along this highway during monsoon, in the period 2015–2019 have been studied to arrive at meaningful rainfall and...

The estimation of rockfall hazards is usually based only on hazards related to rockfall propagation. The rockfall failure hazard is not currently well defined, and only a few studies have truly addressed this topic. The basics of slope stability assessment are reviewed. Here, we propose a summary of the standard methods used to assess susceptibilit...

We present an efficient MATLAB-based implementation of the material point method (MPM) and its most recent variants. MPM has gained popularity over the last decade, especially for problems in solid mechanics in which large deformations are involved, such as cantilever beam problems, granular collapses and even large-scale snow avalanches. Although...

Since the end of the Little Ice Age, the west face of the Drus (Mont Blanc massif, France) has been affected by a retrogressive erosion dynamic marked by large rockfall events. From the 1950s onwards, the rock failure frequency gradually increased until the large rockfall event (292,680 m3) of June 2005, which made the Bonatti Pillar disappear. Aim...

L'article décrit les différentes approches permettant d'estimer la fréquence de départ des éboulements ou des blocs dans le cas d'un aléa diffus, dans l'objectif de quantifier l'aléa résultant par une simulation des trajectoires. Si l'on simule la chute des compartiments entiers, la fréquence de départ des éboulements peut être estimée à partir d'i...

Haphazard construction of rural roads and intense rainstorms have magnified the landslide in Nepal, often caused lives and livelihood. Landslide hazard mapping is useful to better understand the unstable slopes; however, in Nepal landslide database is highly scarce that turns the studies to construct Landslide Susceptibility Model (LSM). To assess...

Haphazard construction of rural roads and intense rainstorms have magnified the landslide in Nepal, often caused lives and livelihood. Landslide hazard mapping is useful to better understand the unstable slopes; however, in Nepal landslide database is highly scarce that turns the studies to construct Landslide Susceptibility Model (LSM). To assess...

A growing body of research indicates that rock slope failures, particularly from exfoliating cliffs, are promoted by rock deformations induced by daily temperature cycles. Although previous research has described how these deformations occur, full three-dimensional monitoring of both the deformations and the associated temperature changes has not y...

Large slope collapses have been known to trigger extreme rushes of air loaded with projectiles (airblasts) capable of causing destruction and fatalities far beyond run-out of the rock mass. An appraisal of the likelihood of a destructive airblast should be a component of landslide risk assessments. Yet there is an absence of risk studies directly e...

Haphazard construction of rural roads and intense rainstorms have 5 increased the landslide events in Nepal, frequently causing lives and livelihoods. 6 Landslide Hazard Map (LHM) is useful for better planning of infrastructures and 7 land-use; however in Nepal LHM is limited in use where landslide database is scarce, 8 often studies turn to Landsl...

Haphazard construction of rural roads and intense rainstorms have increased the landslide events in Nepal, frequently causing lives and livelihoods. Landslide Hazard Map (LHM) is useful for better planning of infrastructures and land-use; however in Nepal LHM is limited in use where landslide database is scarce, often studies turn to Landslide Susc...

In this contribution, we present an efficient MATLAB-based implementation of the material point method (MPM) and its most recent variants. MPM has gained popularity over the last decade, especially for problems in solid mechanics in which large deformations are involved, i.e., cantilever beam problems, granular collapses and even large-scale snow a...

We evaluated the seismic ambient noise correlation method to monitor landslides, through a litterature review on 9 landslides, also compared with non-landslide studies. Main conclusions : (1) useful for early warning on earthflow (precursor before failure observed on 2 studies) (2) useful to monitor the slow reconsolidation after a failure (4 stu...

Across a large mountain area of the western Swiss Alps, we used occurrence data (presence‐only points) of bird species to find suitable modelling solutions and build reliable distribution maps to deal with biodiversity and conservation necessities of bird species at finer scales. We have performed a multi‐scale method of modelling, which uses dista...

This paper presents an overview of existing methods developed to characterize initial landslide failure surfaces and compute volumes based on surface information, when it is buried. This paper reviews the simplest models, such as volume estimation based on ellipsoids, and the information that can be obtained from surface displacement and morphology...

In the morning of 23 August 2017, around 3×106 m3 of granitoid rock broke off from the eastern face of Piz Cengalo, southeastern Switzerland. The initial rockslide–rockfall entrained 6×105m3 of a glacier and continued as a rock (or rock–ice) avalanche before evolving into a channelized debris flow that reached the village of Bondo at a distance of...

The published version of this article, unfortunately, contained error. Authors found out that in equation 5, two deltas (Δ) were missing. Given in this article is the correct equation.

Superelevation is an often observed phenomenon in landslide and debris flow down a complex three-dimensional topography. The degree of superelevation is controlled by the geometry of the channel, the material involved and also the flow dynamics. Empirical methods are usually applied to estimate superelevation. However, those models are incomplete a...

Abstract. A landslide-generated tsunami is a complex phenomenon that involves landslide dynamics, wave dynamics and their interaction. Numerous lives and infrastructures around the world are threatened by these events. Predictive numerical models are a suitable tool to assess this natural hazard. However, the complexity of this phenomenon causes s...

A new inventory of 66 small and shallow landslides within six pilot areas was created based on a high-resolution digital elevation model in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. The geometrical characteristics of the landslides were recorded (i.e. surface area, maximum thickness and length), and the volumes were estimated. These data permitted the dev...

Laser scanning or light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been revolutionary for landslide research because it provides high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) topography, which allows for characterizing all types of landslides in greater detail. The major advances in various techniques and a short history of its development are presented. The basic...

Talk: https://vimeo.com/466153996/9396702ca4. Glacially carved valleys composed of hard rock tend to have a “U” shaped profile with vertical cliffs that are prone to rockfalls. Predicting rockfall bounce heights, energies and runouts in U-shaped valleys is a challenging task for rockfall simulation models, primarily because empirically based models...

A first assessment of debris flow susceptibility at a large scale was performed along the National Road N7, Argentina. Numerous catchments are prone to debris flows and likely to endanger the road-users. A 1:50,000 susceptibility map was created. The use of a DEM (grid 30 m) associated to three complementary criteria (slope, contributing area, curv...

ALONGSIDE THE GROWTH and expansion of spatial data in the geosciences and society in general, virtual- and augmented-reality technology has been providing exciting avenues to explore spatial data in an immersive, intuitive and collaborative way. New virtual and augmented headsets and the growth of 3D spatial data have allowed the creation of novel...

In this paper, a MATLAB tool for the automatic detection of the best locations to install a wireless sensor network (WSN) is presented. The implemented code works directly on high-resolution 3D point clouds and aims to help in positioning sensors that are part of a network requiring inter-visibility, namely, a clear line of sight (LOS). Indeed, wit...

Characterization of rock discontinuities and rock bridges is required to define stability conditions of fractured rock masses in both natural and engineered environments. Although remote sensing methods for mapping discontinuities have improved in recent years, remote detection of intact rock bridges on cliff faces remains challenging, with their e...

This experimental work focuses on the cratering response of granular layers induced by liquid droplet impacts. A droplet impact results in severe granular layer deformation, crater formation and deposits in the vicinity of the impact center. High-precision three-dimensional imaging of the granular layer surface revealed important characteristics of...