31 July 2011
Landslide protection, New Zealand style
Posted by Dave Petley
During a journey over the stunning Arthur’s Pass, one of the three roads across the Southern Alps in New Zealand, today I came across two really nice examples of landslide mitigation works for the road. First, protection from rockfalls in a steep gorge section:
Further down the road was this magnificent bridge, the Otira Viaduct:
This viaduct was completed in 1999, and sought to bypass a section of road that was both avalanche and landslide prone. The Numahammers site has an image of the road before the viaduct was completed:
Now that must have been scary in heavy rain!
Dave Petley is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom. His blog provides commentary and analysis of landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.
the first mitigation strutcure is common in Alps but seem very precarious and the place very dangerous
[…] My fellow AGU blogger Dave Petley is down under in New Zealand and has a cool post on the road over Arthur’s pass in the Southern Alps. Trust me, It’s one of the most amazing drives you will ever take. How they protected the road from landslides is the subject of his post. […]
The road that predates the viaduct at Otira is crossing a rock-avalanche deposit that blocked the river and has been mainly eroded out since – that is why the zig-zags were so unstable.
Scary, but what a drive!
That’s very much the scenic route to Christchurch from the ferry!
I was reffering to rockfall shelter that seem me precariuos and not anchored