Abstract: Geological disasters occur frequently in the Three Gorges reservoir area, but there is little research on causal relationships between landslides and structural characteristics. In particular, a number of landslides occurred in the same local structure, but their relationship has rarely been studied. Based on the related theory and the engineering geologic research, this study is focused on the Xiejiabao anticline and examining the relationship between local structures and landslide types. Hanging wall morphology controls the distribution of landslides in Chang Jiang river area and Qing Ganhe area. This makes landslide group size to decrease gradually from the west to the east. Landslide group size in the Chang Jiang river area is larger than that in the Qing Ganhe area. This is closely related to the changing dip angles of limbs of a fault-propagation fold, i.e., the dip angle in the south of Qing Ganhe is greater than that in the north of Chang Jiang River. This study shows that the large-scale landslides are related to local structure types and local river cutting structures, which control not only the evolution of landslides on the whole bonk slope, but also the evolutien of an individual landslide.

Key words: the three gorges reservoir area, local structure, landslide