Commentary on “Experimental study on the moving characteristics of fine grains in wide grading unconsolidated soil under heavy rainfall” by CUI Yi-fei, ZHOU Xiao-jun and GUO Chao-xu

A paper, which was recently published in Journal of Mountain Science by Cui et al. (2017), reported a series of laboratory flume experiments designed to illuminate the moving characteristics of fine particles for wide grading unconsolidated soils by considering three factors, slope gradient, rainfall duration and rainfall intensity. This commentary is prompted to further provide some viewpoints about the fine particle migration phenomenon during landslide initiation and offer some recommendations as the future research focus for better understanding the related processes.