GEOTECNIA DE LOS SUELOS PERUANOS

FAILURES IN THE AMAZON RIVERBANKS, IQUITOS, PERU

A.Carrillo-Gil
University of Engineering & A.Carrillo Gil S.A.,Consulting Engineering,Lima,Peru

L. Dominguez
University of Engineering,Lima & The Maritime Authority of Peru

ABSTRACT: The review of geological and getechnical conditions releted to the instability
phenomena in the Amazon riverbanks near to Iquitos city in Peru have been presented.
The Amazon river does not have a defined riverbed, therefore it flows forming meanders in
the low-jungle of Peru, on a soft tropical soil formed by clays, silt and sands. The movement and
withdrawal of the river, that has made an island disappear, has originated erosion in its left margin
and sedimentation in its opposite margin, typical condition of the hydraulic behavior of this river
each 100 years. This fact produces landslides that occur with great regularity along changing
course of the river. The evaluation of stability of natural and cut slope in tropical soil involves in
many cases a considerable degree of uncertainty.

1- INTRODUCTION that alternatively occur in both margins of the

The stability of the riverbanks in the
Peruvian Amazon jungle present a great
number of technical problems not existing in
other places, since in very few regions of the
world are present the atmospherical,
environmental or hydrological conditions that
prevail in this region, adding to these factors
the lack of conventional construction materials.
The erosion and sedimentation phenomena
rivers, and the continuous course changes
between the subsequent years, present
additional problems and large challenges to the
application of the knowledge of the
geotechnical engineering, so much in the low
jungle that is between 80 and 400 meters
above mean sea level, as in the high jungle
between 400 and 1000 meters above mean
sea level..

Fig.1 Overview of Reference 3 Landslide, 1994, Iquitos - Per

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Fig.2 - Schematic movements of the Amazon River

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Fig.3 - Cross sectional illustration of the bed
movement
Two factors that influence of
preponderant way on the bank failures of the
Amazon river are undoubtedly the behavior of
the tropical saprolitic soil and the special
characteristics of the river within the Peruvian
Amazon region; this is why we emphasize of
general way these two aspects trying to explain
the phenomena occurred since several years
ago in this region. (Fig.1)
2- GEOTECHNICAL SETTING
The general geology considers that a
large part of the Amazon region has stayed
covered during the periods interglacial periods
of the quaternary by an interior sea of shallow
water when the level of the oceans having 100
meters above of the existing now (330,000
years ago) and began to fluctuate during
several glacial and interglacial periods forming
terraces throughout the water courses,
dropping to 100 meters below of the level
during the last Glacial Era (17,000 years ago)
and remaining in these deep channels the
large rivers, between them the Amazon river,
raising afterwards to the current level (6,000
years ago)
The accomplished studies establish that
in the high jungle and in the limits of the low
jungle are found so much igneous rocks as
sedimentary, while in the low jungle prevail
saprolitic soils originated by the sedimentary
rocks of the terciary and quaternary and they
are formed mainly by sandstones, shales and
clays.
The general description of the
geomorphology of the Amazon region indicates
that the low jungle is substantially flat and as
said remain, its height varies between 80 to
400 meters above mean sea level. Due to this
small difference of elevation the rivers flow
slowly, getting in the dry station the apperance
of lakes. This region of the Amazone plain, can
be indicated as advanced erosion type. The
Amazon plain is characterized by his great
humidity and soil covered by a dense tropical
vegetation.
3- MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESS OF THE
RIVER
The Amazon river does not have a
defined riverbed, it reflects forming meanders
on a soft alluvial soil of thickness variable. The
meanders are displaced downstream
originating erosion and sedimentation, near the
zone of Iquitos city, the river is split into two
arms by an Island.
If it is compared the information of the
movement of the Amazon river for 1948 with
that of 1994 we can observe that the erosion of
the Island is of almost 2,500 meters (Fig. 2).
The erosion of the head of the Island originated
by the flow of the river, has permitted the
advance of the waters meander up of this but
not to it used to, causing its deformation
upstream as well as downstream. The
deformation of the upstream meander has
modified the riverbed of the eastern arm
stressing its curvature and narrowing the
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Island, getting to break it in February 1994. As

consequence of the break of the Island, the
eastern riverbed is becoming the main bed of
the river, carrying out more than 90% of the
liquid and solid transportation of the flow of the
river; this flow prevents the free delivery of the
western arm flow, originating loss of speed of
the flow and the sedimentation in all the
eastern bed (Fig. 3). The revenue of the water
flow by the western arm will be every time
smaller due to the sedimentation being formed
in the left margin .In a near future, in low
waters, there will not be revenue of water to
this arm.

4- ORIGINS OF MEANDERS MOVEMENT

To offer some explanation to the

movement of the meanders of the Amazon
river, we present below the factors that they
can originate them: Soil with low gradient and
smoothly sloped toward to the East, in the
order of 1: 20,000, that offers greater or
smaller resistance to the water flow. The
changes of water level between flood and ebb
times, that reach fluctuations from 10 to 12
meters. The tectonic movements in the
Amazon zone that are small, however the
surface of the land bark suffers level changes,
originating possible displacement in the bed of
the rivers, this is as if a great flat platform and
slightly inclined is moved slowly through a
geological time of 100 to 200 years, modifying
the riverbeds of then returning to their original
state causing again disorders and instability in
their banks. Finally, the periodical change of
the magnetic axis of the earth that originates a
difference of attraction located in the course of
the river, producing greater levels in the banks
and as consequence a change in the form of
the meanders.

5- EVOLUTION OF INSTABILITY OF THE

RIVERBANKS

According to what is shown previously,

the Amazon river has impacted strongly on the
riverbank of reference 1 between the years
1948 and 1972 and on the riverbank of
reference 3, between the years 1993 and 1994
, being produced phenomena of instability
similar in the zone of Iquitos city. Phenomena Fig.4 - Observed safety factors, References 3
that go advancing downstream initially as landslides
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erosion to end afterwards as sedimentation
and therefore stabilization of the slide critical
area. During more than 40 years they have
been producing landslides that have damaged
considerably different types of engineering
works placed in the banks of the Amazon river,
having been evaluated their stability throughout
different methods and calculation procedures,
finding evidently, safety factors very low (Fs =
0.963) when the river impacts directly on the
critical border, and increasing gradually
according the river is going far creating
sedimentation and throwing safety factors that
go growing (Fs = 1.341, 1.684, 1.848, etc) until
showing reasonably high stability, that assure
stable engineering works during a time that
varies from 50 to 100 years in some instances,
returning after this period to present critical
instability states. (Fig. 4)
6- FINAL COMMENTS
The results shown in this paper provide
a global vision of the stability problems of soils
of the Peruvian wet tropic, generated by the
changing morphology of the rivers that
originate important risk situations in some
cases, and increasingly growing stability in
others that permits to establish the
development of new behavior standards for the
riverbanks of the Peruvian Amazon that in the
future can be predictable with certain
approximation considering their evolution in the
geological time of hundreds of years, since
now in certain areas it has already passed the
danger, and maybe within 100 or more years,
the problem return to be present and the safety
factors of the banks decrease gradually until to
become unstable and to produce large
landslides as they occurred in sites and dates
of study . Due to the fact that is not yet
possible to arrive to a real determination of the
engineering properties of saprolitic soils of the
Peruvian Amazon that allow to formulate a
rational forecast about the behavior of these
geotechnical materials, it is convenient to
project engineering structures for a given
useful life, according to the probable safety
factors of the banks of the river, being
estimated the probable and necessary
investments, in some instances effective and in
others unnecessary due to the fact that the
traditional criteria does not insert satisfactorily
in many of the cases of instability studied,
considering finally that the Peruvian Amazon is
located in a region of a very singular world in
light of their geotechnical occurrences and of
climate that create very difficult wet tropical
soils to predict and handle in the construction
of the earth works.
7- REFERENCES
Carrillo-Gil, A.,(1978), Characteristic of
Tropical Soils in Peru, Latin American
Magazine of Geotecnique, Vol. IV, N4 pp.
207-216, Caracas - Venezuela (in Spanish).
Carrillo-Gil, A.,(1983), Stability Problems in
Iquitos, Peru, Proc. VII PanAmerican
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation
Engineering, Vancouver -Canada.
Carrillo-Gil, A.,Carrillo Delgado E.,Cardenas,
J.,Flores, J., 1993, Stabilization alternative in
the Wet Tropical Region for Pavements, Proc.
of the VII National Conference on Soils
Mechanics, Lima - Peru (in Spanish).
Carrillo-Gil,A.,Carrillo, E.,Cardenas,
J.,Robalino M.,(1994), Characterization of
Tropical Soils of Peru, X National Congress of
Civil Engineering, Lima, Peru (in Spanish).
Carrillo-Gil, A.,Carrillo, E.,Cardenas, J.,(1995),
Properties of the peruvian tropical soils, Paper
submited to X Panamerican Conference on
Soil Mech. and Foundation Eng., Guadalajara,
Mexico.
Dominguez, L., (1994), Morphological changes
on the Amazon River, Conference in Ricardo
Palma University, Lima, Per. (in Spanish).