On making the earth move!

Professor Sarah Springham

This seminar will introduce a landslide experiment on a steep instrumented wooded slope along the River Rhine that didn’t fail during an extreme artificial rainfall event in October 2008. The reasons why, and actions taken, will be presented together with the successful repeat experiment in March 2009. In this case failure was achieved more or less as predicted, with about 200m² of land sliding quickly, yet safely, into an instrumented protection net.

The background to the planning of this multidisciplinary experiment with core team members from hydrology,engineering geology, forestry and soil science, photogrammetry as well as soil mechanics, and the issues around ensuring safety for those working on the project, will be mentioned briefly as well as the much larger context of rain induced slope failures.

Engineers Australia members participating in AGS technical sessions can record attendance on their personal CPD logs. Members should refer to Engineers Australia CPD policy for details on CPD types, requirements and auditing guidelines.