ASSESSMENT ON ENGINEERING GEOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF FROZEN GROUND ALONG THE QINGHAI-TIBET ENGINEERING CORRIDOR(QTEC)BASED ON FCM AND AHP

The Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor(QTEC) is an important link between the inner China and Tibet, where several linear projects were located in. Since the fragility of ecology and warm, ice rich permafrost, the engineering geological conditions along QTEC are extremely sensitive to climate change and human activities. Based on the analysis of main influencing factors for engineering geological conditions of QTEC in permafrost regions, volumetric ice content, mean annual ground temperature, slope aspect, slope gradient and vegetation coverage were selected as assessment factors for evaluating engineering geological conditions along QTEC using Fuzzy C-means Clustering(FCM) and Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP)methods. In this paper, Geographic Information System(GIS)was used to visualize the assessment results. According to the classification of FCM, the calculation results of AHP were classified into several grades. A comparison of the results from two methods showed that, in the permafrost regions with higher ice content, warmer ground temperature and higher slope gradient, engineering geological conditions are obviously poor. And these regions are mainly located at Kunlun Mountain, Chumar high plain, Wudaoliang Basin and Kaixinling Mountain. Evaluating results from the two methods showed a good agreement and the two methods can therefore effectively assess the engineering geological conditions of QTEC.