The blockage and erosion characteristics of woody debris flow on an erodible gully bed: Insight from a small-scale model experiment

During the transportation process of debris flow with large wood (LW), phenomena such as channel blockage and collapse frequently occurs, resulting in increased discharge surges, heightened erosion intensity, and amplified damage. Accurately predicted the blockage performance is the basis of evaluating the damage and disaster mitigation of woody debris flow. In this study, we conducted a series of laboratory experiments of woody debris flow on erodible gully bed. The experiment results show that the final blockage types can be divided into three types: non-blockage, blockage, and semi-blockage. Temporary blockage will cause abundant sediment deposited temporarily and then released instantaneously, resulting in destructive surges and eventually lead to semi-blockage and non-blockage. The blockage degree is positively correlated with the relative length, relative content of LW, and bulk density of debris flow, but negatively correlated with slope. Channel blockage is often accompanied by significant local erosion effect, and the erosion depth of downstream channel increases with the increase in blockage degree. The blockage and collapse mechanism of woody debris flow was analyzed, and the results emphasized that channel erosion promoted the outbreak of blockage collapse. Based on the analysis of blockage performance, we propose an improved blockage criterion F to evaluate the blockage degree, and the high probability range of temporary blockage is determined as 1.5–5.0. The results can provide reference for the risk assessment and mitigation of woody debris flow.