A novel geophysical assessment of multiple geohazards along China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a major infrastructure and development project aimed at boosting economic cooperation and connectivity between China and Pakistan. CPEC success mainly depends on geohazard assessment along Karakoram Highway (KKH) in North Pakistan. Geohazard assessment along KKH is crucial for protecting CPEC infrastructures by evaluating potential risks from landslides, earthquakes, debris, and floods, enabling proactive mitigation measures and disaster preparedness. Understanding between geohazards and rock mass quality is crucial for safe and sustainable CPEC development, as rock mass quality directly impacts the likelihood and severity of geohazards. Rock mass quality is world widely evaluated by rock mass classification systems also known as geomechanical parameteers (RQD, UCS, RMR, GSI, Kv, RCI, E, and Q-System). These rock mass classification systems can efficiently identify potential issues related to rock mass load-bearing ability, discontinuities, and slope stability. Traditionally, only drilling/laboratory tests can determine such parameters. However, because of several limitations, it may not be possible to drill many boreholes to investigate a site entirely. Therefore, it is necessary to use an alternative non-invasive approach, which can entirely assess KKH by reducing significant number of boreholes. Alternatively, geophysical methods can overcome shortcomings of traditional methods. In this research, for the first time, we will use non-invasive seismic methods such as MASW (Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves) and SRM (Seismic Reflection Method) to obtain geomechanical parameters. The obtained 2D and 3D geomechanical models will provide more detailed and accurate evaluation of rock mass quality for reliable assessment of multiple geohazards (landslides, earthquakes, etc) in the world’s most challenging geological setting of KKH region. Compared with the past research, this research reduces lots of expensive drilling tests in highly heterogeneous environment, eliminates geological uncertainty by bridging the gaps between limited drilling data and accurate geological models, and provides far better evaluation of rock mass quality for more accurate geohazards assessment at various depths even where no drilling-based geomechanical data is available.