{"id":41350,"date":"2022-07-25T06:37:48","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T06:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=41350"},"modified":"2022-07-25T06:37:48","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T06:37:48","slug":"shetland-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/07\/25\/shetland-1\/","title":{"rendered":"New peat landslides in Shetland (including a very interesting landslide video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>New peat landslides in Shetland (including a very interesting landslide video)<\/h4>\n<p>The Shetland islands, off the far north coast of Scotland, are covered with large amounts of blanket bog.\u00a0 In such settings, exceptional rainfall and\/or disturbance of the peat by human activity can trigger <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?s=peat&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;mswhere=blog\">peat landslides<\/a> &#8211; there was for example a large failure at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shetlandtimes.co.uk\/2012\/08\/22\/landslides-hit-central-mainland-including-uradale-farmhouse\">Scalloway in Shetland in 2012<\/a> and there were multiple peat landslides in a heavy rainfall event in Shetland in September 2003 (<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10346-008-0114-7\">Dykes and Warburton 2008<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>On 4 July 2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shetnews.co.uk\/2022\/07\/14\/viking-landslide-damage-reinstated-as-wind-farm-opponents-voice-concern\/\">a landslide was triggered on the Mid Kames Ridge<\/a> in Shetland.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hYkyYnRGp88\">There is a Youtube video of the setting of the Mid Kames Ridge taken from a drone<\/a>, including views of the access roads and pads for a large windfarm, which includes 103 turbines across several sites, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sserenewables.com\/onshore-wind\/in-development\/viking\/\">which is under construction by Viking Energy<\/a>.\u00a0 There seems to be little dispute that the peat landslide was associated with the windfarm construction.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shetnews.co.uk\/2022\/07\/14\/viking-landslide-damage-reinstated-as-wind-farm-opponents-voice-concern\/\">The Shetland News has posted an article about the landslide<\/a>, which includes a remarkable video <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/111070719185\/\">posted to Facebook by the Stop Viking Energy Windfarm group<\/a>.\u00a0 This video shows the landslide in motion, carrying an area of crushed rock, presumably a part of the windfarm infrastructure.\u00a0 This still from the video shows the material that failed:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41353\" style=\"width: 809px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41353\" class=\" wp-image-41353\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-1.jpg\" alt=\"The 4 July 2022 landslide on the Kames Ridge in Shetland.\" width=\"799\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-1.jpg 1784w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-1-300x142.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-1-1024x486.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-1-768x364.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-1-1536x728.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41353\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>The 4 July 2022 landslide on the Kames Ridge in Shetland. Image from a video posted to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/111070719185\/\">Facebook by the Stop Viking Energy Windfarm group<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FXf72vuRfVE\">The video is also on Youtube<\/a> and should be visible below:-<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Peat slip at Viking&#039;s Mid Kames site\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FXf72vuRfVE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>This is a remarkable example of a peat slide in action &#8211; there are few such videos around.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shetnews.co.uk\/2022\/07\/14\/viking-landslide-damage-reinstated-as-wind-farm-opponents-voice-concern\/\">The Shetland News reports that the area has been stabilised and some reinforcement has been placed to prevent a recurrence<\/a>.\u00a0 However, experience says that remediating the site of such landslides is very difficult.\u00a0 The scar from another peat landslide on the Kames Ridge, which occurred in 2015, remains visible.<\/p>\n<p>On 23 June 2022, less than two weeks prior to the landslide Mid Kames Ridge , <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geplus.co.uk\/opinion\/onshore-wind-farms-come-with-geotechnical-risk-23-06-2022\/\">I published an article in Ground Engineering warning of the risk of peat landslides associated with windfarm development<\/a>.\u00a0 I said:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Onshore wind development can pose a real threat to peatlands. If poor ground engineering practices are deployed, large-scale failures can occur, causing massive peat degradation and inflicting a high environmental cost downstream.\u00a0 The development of new wind farms in peatland areas will pose substantial ground engineering challenges.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, yesterday another landslide occurred on Shetland, triggered by heavy rainfall.\u00a0 Again, it seems likely that this is a peat landslide, although on this occasion it does not seem to have been related to a windfarm.\u00a0 It partially blocked a road at Vidlin Junction.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shetnews.co.uk\/2022\/07\/24\/landslide-blocks-road-after-heavy-rainfall\/\">The Shetland News has a photograph<\/a>:-<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41357\" style=\"width: 809px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41357\" class=\" wp-image-41357\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-2.jpeg\" alt=\"The 24 July 2022 landslide at Vidlin Junction in Shetland. \" width=\"799\" height=\"506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-2.jpeg 1500w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-2-300x190.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-2-1024x648.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/07\/22_07-Shetland-2-768x486.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41357\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>The 24 July 2022 landslide at Vidlin Junction in Shetland. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shetnews.co.uk\/2022\/07\/24\/landslide-blocks-road-after-heavy-rainfall\/\">Image from the Shetland News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<h4>Reference<\/h4>\n<p>Dykes, A.P. and Warburton, J. 2008.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10346-008-0114-7\">Characteristics of the Shetland Islands (UK) peat slides of 19 September 2003<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/journal\/10346\"><i>Landslides<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<b>5,\u00a0<\/b>213\u2013226 (2008). <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-008-0114-7\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10346-008-0114-7<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 4 July 2022 a peat landslide occurred at the site of a windfarm under construction in Shetland, north Scotland. <!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":41353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,29],"tags":[144,469,963,1145,304,228,30698,133],"class_list":["post-41350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","category-landslide-video","tag-europe","tag-featured","tag-landslide-video","tag-peat","tag-peatslide","tag-scotland","tag-shetland","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}