Early Warning Protocol against Highway Slope Failures in Mississippi

Early warning (EW) can be defined broadly as the provision of timely advice prior to the occurrence of a highly unsafe event. Efficient data use for EW is a critical component of failure management in general, which encompasses activities such as vulnerable zone mapping, prediction, warning element, prevention, planning, and action. The objective of the current study was to propose an early warning protocol (EWP) for highway slopes (HWS) constructed on high-plastic clay in Mississippi. Six HWS were investigated, instrumented, monitored, and considered reference slopes. During this study, field investigation, lab testing, numerical modeling, and data analysis were implemented. Based on the analysis results, field observation, inventory, slope stability factor, and action plan were found to be the main components of the EWP. Moreover, it was found that the observe, plan, decide, and act are the key predecessors of the proposed EWP. This study developed and presented a simple, robust, and low-cost EWP for HWS failure mitigation that other state transportation agencies can widely deploy and operate.