Development of a GIS-based landslide management system for western Manitoba's highway network

Slope failures are a significant issue in the sedimentary clay shales of western Manitoba. Fluvial induced erosion by under fit rivers of the glacial Lake Agassiz have carved into the Odanah and Millwood clay shales in many regions, exposing them along valley walls in many areas of Western Manitoba. Manitoba's highways and surrounding infrastructure are at risk in these areas, where significant damage and hazards to the public due to landslides are a large concern. In today's age of proactive risk assessment it has become necessary to develop a management approach to optimize allocation of resources to highway infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation in these areas.; Four previously investigated and documented failures are the focus for developing a predictive model of which environmental and geological attributes tend to lead to failure. In the fall of 2006, six sites were visited where the Saskatchewan risk assessment system (Kelly et al. 2004) was applied to establish probability, consequence and risk factors for each site. Results from the tour were used as the basis for developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) model to predict risk of failure.; Development of the Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation Risk Management System (MITRMS) includes mathematical processing of digital elevation models (DEMs), allocating buffer distances around water bodies and highway infrastructure, selection of a representative statistical distribution to describe the occurrence level of grade in spatially selected regions, and reviewing highway designation and their public dependency. By combining a GIS and manually observed site specific information, a prioritized list of potentially hazardous landslide sites is created along western Manitoba's highway network.