Date: |
17 Feb 2025, 5.00PM – 8.00PM |
duration: |
3 hrs |
Venue: |
Engineering New Zealand |
Address: |
level 6/40 Taranaki Street Wellington |
Cost: |
Free event |
Assessment of landslide risks requires an understanding of how future landslide behaviour (the hazard) could have an adverse impact on people, property and the environment (the consequences). However, what will happen in the future cannot be known precisely, and often cannot be predicted with confidence. This ‘radical uncertainty’ results from incomplete knowledge about the slope systems and the response to energy inputs (e.g. waves, rainfall, earthquakes).
Probability is a measure of uncertainty. However, estimating landslide probability should not rely on ‘geology-free’ statistical models. The geology does matter. It will be necessary to make judgements based on an understanding of slope conditions and behaviour as well as historical data.
This lecture examines the way in which geomorphology and an understanding of slope behaviour are key to landslide risk assessment. The focus is on predictions of landslide probability made for economic risk assessments on the UK’s Yorkshire coast. This coast is associated with rapid cliff recession rates (e.g. the Holderness coast) and major landslide events (e.g. the Holbeck Hall landslide, Scarborough). However, the lecture’s central messages can apply to landslide risk studies everywhere, both at the coast and inland.
The NZGS is delighted to host Dr Mark Lee to present his Glossop Medal Lecture on "Landslide Risk Assessment: Radical Uncertainty and Engineering Geomorphology".
Assessment of landslide risks requires an understanding of how future landslide behaviour (the hazard) could have an adverse impact on people, property and the environment (the consequences). However, what will happen in the future cannot be known precisely, and often cannot be predicted with confidence. This ‘radical uncertainty’ results from incomplete knowledge about the slope systems and the response to energy inputs (e.g. waves, rainfall, earthquakes).
Probability is a measure of uncertainty. However, estimating landslide probability should not rely on ‘geology-free’ statistical models. The geology does matter. It will be necessary to make judgements based on an understanding of slope conditions and behaviour as well as historical data.
This lecture examines the way in which geomorphology and an understanding of slope behaviour are key to landslide risk assessment. The focus is on predictions of landslide probability made for economic risk assessments on the UK’s Yorkshire coast. This coast is associated with rapid cliff recession rates (e.g. the Holderness coast) and major landslide events (e.g. the Holbeck Hall landslide, Scarborough). However, the lecture’s central messages can apply to landslide risk studies everywhere, both at the coast and inland.
