Impact of Climate Change on Slope Stability in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Rainfall induced landslide is one of the most common natural disasters experienced in Malaysia. With climate change having its impact felt throughout the world bringing more extreme weather, it is important to assess the stability of the slope in vulnerable areas. This study assessed future climate change impacts on slope stability in Kuala Lumpur’s landslide-prone areas using Plaxis software. Based on tropical granitic residual soil properties, which is one of the highest frequencies where historical landslides took place, 10 m-high slopes with gradients of 1 V:1H, 1 V:1.5H, and 1 V:2H were simulated. Rainfall data from 2024 to 2070 (MIROC5_RCP4.5 and MIROC5_RCP8.5) were utilized to predict quarterly pore-water pressure (PWP) using Plaxis LE Groundwater module. Subsequently, Plaxis LE was used to analyse the factor of safety (FOS) of the slope model. Surface soil (2 m depth) showed a great sensitivity to climate change, with pore-water pressure rising by 16.7%, 9.6%, and 6.7% for the slopes of 1 V:1H, 1 V:1.5H, and 1 V:2H, respectively. At deeper depths (5 and 8 m), the variations of PWP decreased to 0.5–1.2%. MIROC5_RCP4.5 indicated increasing PWP and decreasing FOS trends across all slopes, while MIROC5_RCP8.5 amplified these trends. Comparatively, MIROC5_RCP8.5 showed steeper FOS decreases, notably in slopes 1 V:1.5H (2.85 times more than RCP4.5) and 1 V:2H (10 times more than RCP4.5). When compared with MIROC5_RCP4.5, the occurrences of FOS < 1 were higher in MIROC5_RCP8.5 due to the increase in rainfall intensity, i.e. 1 V:1H slope (90.5% vs. 91.4%), 1 V:1.5H slope (67.4% vs. 70.1%), and 1 V:2H slope (27.3% vs. 35.3%). These results indicated that gentler slopes exhibited heightened vulnerability, accentuating the need for adaptation strategies. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.