Laboratory-based physical modeling of rainfall-induced landslides: a systematic review

Abstract Rainfall-induced landslides are common hazards that threaten both humans and infrastructure, hence the need to evaluate the risks coupled with landslides. Laboratory-based physical modeling is a crucial approach for understanding mechanisms of landslides triggered by rainfall. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature to critically assess the status quo of scientific research in the field of rainfall-induced landslides. A total of 111 studies published between 2003 - 2025 were systematically analyzed mainly for geographical, methodological, and technical dimensions. The analysis revealed a rapid growth in scientific work and publications. The results also indicated significant variations in physical models’ development, including soil sources, the number of soil layers considered in experimental modeling, soil preparation methods, and instrumentations techniques to monitor the effect of various influencing factors. However, the analysis also pointed out some weaknesses that require addressing to improve results from physical models, including lack of consideration for drainage and vegetation effects, inefficient calibration of the model components, and insufficient experimental validation processes. Moreover, the analysis demonstrated a lack of clear standard criteria for model type selection such as the framework for designing, constructing, instrumenting and validating physical models. Therefore, this review focuses on analyzing the design, calibration, and validation of physical models, showing that uncontrolled variance in these elements which restricts the generalizability and comparability of findings.