Landslide Hazard Evaluation of Road Cut Slopes along Uttarkashi-Bhatwari Road, Uttaranchal Himalaya

The Himalaya is vulnerable to instability and mass-wasting processes The large-scale anthropogenic activities, which are often earned out without accounting for the already existing adverse parameters may further deteriorate the stability conditions Particularly because of the rapid rate of construction oi roads, the inherent geological and geotechnical parameters are often not taken into consideration in the planning and design stages In case of road cut slopes, evaluation of landslide hazards along the alignment is required to minimize fuither instability The paper deals with stability evaluation techniques for 28km long Uttarkashi-Bhatwari road section falling in the important Uttarkashi- Gangotri route in Bhagirathi valley of Garhwal Himalaya The 'modified SMR' technique [{BIS 13365(Part 3) 1997}] has been applied for rock cut slopes and circular failure charts of Hoek and Biay (1981) have been used for slopes consisting of debris The objective of the paper is to evaluate the instability problems of cut-slopes and to suggest suitable remedial measures.