30 April 2009
British Geological Survey landslide web page
Posted by Dave Petley
The British Geological Survey (BGS) appear to have been quite active of late in overhauling their web pages, reflecting what seems to be an improved ethos of delivery of information to end users. The landslide pages seem to have been subjected to this upgrade of late, which has led to the creation of a really good set of case study pages, backed up with photos, reports and maps. These pages are available below – they are a little slow on my system, but that might be my wireless router:
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/science/landUseAndDevelopment/landslides/caseStudies.html
A good example of this resource is the 1993 Holbeck Hall landslide (see BGS page here), which includes this image:
Perhaps most excitingly, parts of the UK national landslide database are going to be made available online for free through the new Geoindex tool. A Beta version of this tool is already available – it looks to be a really exciting tool.
Great stuff!
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 BGS explanation of the Holbrook Hotel landslide is so miniscule as to be invisible, perhaps because the blame for the failure has been subject to much litigation. One Google link indicates that in 1997 the courts decided it was because of "poor mainenance of the slope by the Scarborough Borough Council."http://www.nce.co.uk/holbeck-hall-landslide/670751.articlePersonally, I find this explanation which suggests pore pressure augmented by soaker arrays more credible: http://books.google.com/books?id=PhdQUW14KbIC&pg;=PA99&dq;=holbeck+hall+landslide+box+5.1