Hazard connected to railway tunnel construction in karstic area:
applied geomorphological and hydrogeological surveys
Résumé
The hypogeal surveys have shown 5 typologies in which it has been possible to group all the cavities present in a hypothetical intersection with the excavation. The comparison between surface and hypogeal structural data and the direction of development of cavities has allowed for the definition of highly karstified discontinuity families, thus having a higher risk.
The comparison of the collected data has enabled to identify the lithologies and areas having major risk and thus to quantify the probability of intersection with the different cavity typologies for each area. To make an example, out of 27000m of studied gallery 3930 are the metres expected to be at very high "karst risk". Out of these, as a whole 310 are risky because of the probable presence of gallery cavities, 2170 because of the probable presence of pits and sinkholes diffusely present under the dolines, and along 1450m karst is particularly intense. Moreover, 2200 should be the metres in which the rocky mass will be particularly divided because of tectonic causes.
From a hydrogeological point of view a monitoring of water level has started to quantify water excursion, due to closeness of the railway tunnel to the mean water level. First results related to galleries intersection are here presented.