Influence of anthropogenic landscape modifications and infrastructure on the geological characteristics of liquefaction

Many large cities worldwide are built on natural and engineered geological materials that are highly susceptible to liquefaction and associated ground failure in earthquakes. Constitutive equations describing relationships between sediment geotechnical characteristics, seismological parameters, and liquefaction susceptibility of natural and engineered sediments are well established. What is less understood is the role of anthropogenic landscape modifications (e.g., river channel modifications, sediment engineering and re-distribution) and infrastructure (e.g., buildings, buried infrastructure such as drainage systems) on the spatial distributions and severity of liquefaction and ground deformation. Here we use stratigraphic studies, ground penetrating radar (GPR), and analyses of high-resolution aerial photographs to evaluate surface and subsurface geological manifestations of recurrent liquefaction in anthropogenically-modified landscapes during the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequ...