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The Fifth Glossop Lecture

Geomorphological roulette for engineers and planners:

some insights into an old game
D. Brunsden
Emeritus Professor of Geomorphology, Department of Geography, Kings College, London, WC2R 2LS

Abstract if at the very start the geological structure of the

site is misinterpreted, then any subsequent sampling,
ngineers have always appreciated that a civil testing and calculation may be so much labour in vain

E engineering project should be based on a clear

understanding of the geomorphology of the site
of the proposed works. It is an old game!
However, although it is good practice to take full
account of the morphology and processes of the land-
The Rankine Lecture (Glossop, 1968).

Part I: Applied geomorphology: the

scape during an investigation there is a tendency to
restrict the work to basic mapping and identification of
features rather than a true understanding of the site in
space and time. Particular criticisms are that not enough
attention is paid to the effects of landform change, the
identification of inherited material conditions, the fre-
quency and magnitude of processes and the nature of
risk. Ways of improving the service are identified.
It is suggested that future work should be based on a
full understanding of the conceptual basis for modern
geomorphology. In the past thirty years there has been a
revolution in the theoretical basis of the subject as well as
a remarkable improvement in the technical capability. A
major statement is therefore made on the nature of
geomorphology and this is then summarized as a
possible conceptual basis for application to engineering
and planning.
The theme of the paper will be illustrated by a descrip-
tion of the Lyme Regis Environmental Improvements
Scheme in West Dorset which is in the design stage and
has been based on a full understanding of the geomor-
phology and geology of the area and the employment of
a Geo-Team at all stages of the project.
Keywords: applied geomorphology, engineering
geomorphology, human well-being, planning, geomorphological
concepts, systems, inheritance, risk, event frequency and
magnitude, case history
Appreciation of Mr R. Glossop
I had the misfortune not to know Mr Glossop, however,
it is clear from his papers that he was:
A logical man, with broad hands on experience, who
loved the subject and had an understanding of the
historical perspective (Fookes 1997).
And a very sensible man who appreciated:
What you look for should be suggested by the natural
environment because:
Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, 35, 101142
game
Geomorphology is the study of the forms of the surface
of the earth, their origin, the processes involved in their
development, the properties of the materials of which
they are made and predictions about their future
form, behaviour and status. Applied (e.g. engineering)
geomorphology (Table 1) is the application of this
knowledge and the techniques involved, to the solution
of a planning, conservation, resource evaluation,
engineering or environmental problem (Brunsden et al.
1978).
It is my view that the best way to achieve this is to
work as part of a Geo-Team to establish a first stage
geomorphological input to the main geological model,
using the principles described in the first Glossop lecture
(Fookes 1997). We will then be in a strong position to go
on to detailed and quantitative earth science including
measurement, monitoring and sophisticated modelling
(Fig. 1).
Many great engineers (Skempton 1953; Terzaghi &
Peck 1967; Legget 1977; Henkel 1982; Fookes et al.
2000, Peck 1969), have subscribed to the view that we
must base our work on an understanding of the total
geological and geomorphological history of any site,
including event magnitude/frequency relationships.
This is accepted here as one important deliverable to the
Geo-Team. How we may implement this is the purpose
of the lecture.
Emphasis is placed on the value of the historical
approach by Freeze et al. (2000); Di Nocera et al. (1995);
Fookes et al. (2000) and Hutchinson (2001) who have
described the great complexities of space and time
involved in understanding the landscape.
It is this complexity and the need to evaluate prob-
abilities, patterns and trends in unknown landscapes,
anywhere and at the drop of a hat that brought to my
mind the analogy with a game of roulette in which the
1470-9236/01 $15.00  2002 Geological Society of London
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102 BRUNSDEN

ORE GEO-T
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TH M
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IN ure
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Fig. 1. The arena of work of the Geo-Team. The tasks listed l Pipeline r
a
consu
ltancy Imp heme
for each discipline are indicative only and not intended to routing Sc
c W t
cover every subject. e ales rs e
e s t Do
S W
Hong UK
t Kong
spin of a wheel and the drop of a ball into a compart- a ite South Asia
ment determine the outcome. At a simplistic level we are g ig I
e atio I
se
the players. We arrive at work in the morning, spin the n Invento
ry Desk & P h a gn
E e s i
& d
wheel and the slot our ball lands into is our next job. It n remed walkover
v ial survey
is not, however, a simple game (Fig. 2). Imagine the i e
wheel as being multi-layered and the game as three- r rate
o reac ate
p er s
dimensional in time and space! Layer One would be the n er h Tropical
Mediterranean Tem y
m ials Gran c la
ite - vo Steppe s s ic
firm you work for; Layer Two the client; Layer Three e Cyclo lcanics Jura l i de
n ne rainfall te volcano
es nd s
the job; Four the place of work; Five the stage of work; s And esi
a j o r la
t & deb tect oni cs M
ris flow Active
Six the environment and process system; Seven the Periglacial
available Geo-Team. We go to work, spin the layers of
the wheel-where the ball lands is what we will be doing
Fig. 2. The Geo-Team Roulette. Each layer revolves at some
today?
stage but once allocated to a consultant the whole revolves as
Although this is a light-hearted example it a work commitment. Overlap of the chance slot with the job
immediately becomes apparent that the challenge is columns suggests the proportion of work spent on that day on
complex and inter-disciplinary and that only well pre- each job by a consultant. It is meant to illustrate that the
pared players should enter the game-and then only as variety of jobs, clients, tasks and environments is complex and
part of a good team. Perhaps in the early days of that a Geo-Team must be versatile and the methods general-
engineering projects could be carried out with a mixture ized and flexible.
of empirical knowledge, common sense and nerve. Seat
of the pants and fast track engineering were after all
common phrases. volume of case histories of both best and failed
As Fookes (1997) and Hutchinson (2001) have shown, practice.
a player, whether planner, engineer, manager or earth It is in this light that I view the previous Glossop
scientist must be widely educated, flexible, experienced lecturessummary statements reflecting a lifetimes
and free thinking. Because the environments, materials experience that enable a player to step into the game
and processes are so varied and can be anywhere on knowing that some of the probabilities are known and
Earth and yet we must maintain the same high that, hopefully, the game is not fixed. The lessons given
standards, it is essential that we professionally apply by Fookes (1997); Hoek (1998); Chandler (1999) and
clear generally applicable methodologies, codes of Hutchinson (2001) are supported here as an essential
practice, tried and tested standard methods. That is why background. They are good common sense and that too
the Geo-Team approach and total geology are so is what Mr Glossop recommended. I feel that we should
important, in which we can share knowledge and all reflect on how important a job he did for us
nurture the inexperienced. That is why we must also when he helped establish the Engineering Group of The
have supporting (Chartered) institutions and a growing Geological Society of London.
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
The changing geomorphological framework
for applied studies 1970-2000
Geomorphologists in the early 1970s were trained as
geographers because geomorphology was primarily car-
ried out in those departments. The nature of geography,
which is to synthesize data from many sources, to group,
classify, describe and understand the surface of the earth
made them ideal scientists to contribute to the feasibil-
ity, walkover and site investigation phases of projects.
The peculiarly geographical skills which became
valuable in the early days of subject application can be
summarized as being able to appreciate the significance
of spatial and temporal patterns, events, correlations; to
appreciate how variables change in importance with the
scale of the problem and an ability to use maps,
geographical information systems and information data
banks to map and analyse the development of the
landforms. It is therefore not surprising that the basic
skills used at that time were morphological mapping,
surveying, the interpretation of air photographs and
satellite images, soil and vegetation surveys, climate,
surface and groundwater monitoring (Goudie 2001).
Dual training with human geography had given
geomorphologists an appreciation of the politics and
agendas of the financial and policy formulation world
that underpins all practical schemes. This meant that the
needs of the client and the imperative to translate the
esoteric, technical aspects of the subject into terminol-
ogy suitable for the layperson became a characteristic of
geomorphological reports.
Fortunately, during 1960-70 the academic conceptual
framework was changing from the Davisian, Cycle of
Erosion, approach a long term, deductive view of
landform change as an extension of historical geology,
with the purpose of constructing landform change and
denudation chronology models, to a system based study
of process mechanisms, rates and dynamic equilibrium.
This approach emphasized a balance between work
and load, force and resistance and required precise
mapping of the landscape, simple monitoring, data
collection, identification of error and the statistical
techniques of systems analysis. Technical proficiency
and a need to measure processes and materials became
common practice and it was this that brought geomor-
phologists into contact with the deterministic modelling
of engineering and planning.
During the 1970s the need for technical competence
introduced the use of many advanced techniques
(Brunsden 1985) so that today there is a very advanced
capability to remotely observe the earth, to collect data
using digital cameras and remote data loggers, to date,
to analyse properties and to simulate and model using
very fast and powerful desk-top computing facilities.
There has been an improvement in inventory, mapping,
calibration, and evaluation of hazard, susceptibility and
vulnerability calculations and stability studies.
103
There is an awareness of the importance of legislation,
environmental policy acts, engineering and geological
performance standards, ordinances, codes of practice,
and insurance restrictions. There has also been a change
of attitudes since the formative days of the 1960s-1970s.
These developments mean that geomorphology is able
to oer a rigorous, quantitative service to a client. It
might be pointed out that the first four Glossop prizes
have been awarded for geomorphological studies and
the first and last two lectures have highlighted its use.
Part II: A framework for 2001
A modern view therefore is that the subject would be
more useful were it to place emphasis on the risks
identified by geomorphological surveys, predictions of
ground conditions using information on the origin and
evolution of landforms and materials, the activity and
frequency of processes and the nature of hazards. To do
this requires a very dierent conceptual basis than that
employed in the 1970s. Fortunately, during the last
thirty years there have been remarkable changes in the
theoretical approaches to the subject. The explanation
that follows is unashamedly academic and is a personal
view of a modern framework for the subject. It is,
however, only a summary of the parts relevant to
practice; for a full explanation see, Brunsden (1990,
1993a, b, 1996, 2001); Brunsden & Thornes (1979).
It is suggested that the following propositions might
be used as a conceptual basis for the required predic-
tions and calculations. They are based on the view that
the task of the geomorphologist is:
% To provide the Geo-Team with the specifications of
the process-response systems in the project area;
% To describe the preparation processes, inherited
trends and triggers that govern change;
% To identify the processes that are currently forcing
change;
% To isolate the sensitive areas of the landscape;
% To predict the nature of system behaviour in the
future.
Specification: a systems approach
The general approach adopted is to recognize that the
Earths surface is composed of process-response systems
(Fig. 3) that are specified by the stress fabrics given
by the tectonic history and setting, the properties of
the rocks, superficial deposits, landform geometries,
climates and biomes arranged in patterns across the
Earths surface in a hierarchy of landscape types and
scales. The great value of this approach from the applied
point of view is that the stress fabrics, rock types and
morphometric properties are measurable and can be
mapped using desk study, morphological or engineering
geological mapping methods (Griths 2001). They can
be conveniently arranged in suitable classification
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104 BRUNSDEN

THE ATMOSPHERIC CONTROL

Atmospheric T
Energy H
E
d
Lan
The tem G
THE
TENS Sys E
f ION Z Sediment O
T Clif ONE Thickness
H Sea L
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slope Ro log T
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Beach input yd r a te R
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H
me c re c e O
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R Wave Height, etc.
O Bea Beach Output
L ch T
rans
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MW
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Foreshore lowering rate
Foreshore Slope
Sediment exchange
THE GEOMETRIC CONTROL

Fig. 3. The systems approach to geomorphology. The cli system (Brunsden & Lee 2001). Note: artificial horizontal lines have been
used to indicate slope and dip angles to avoid conflict with the perspective of the diagram.

schemes such as landform types, land systems, regions,
drainage basins or geological models. Typically satellite,
air photograph and map interpretations are made at this
time. The most useful products are then early warning
maps, preliminary hazard assessments, identification of
problem areas for future detailed mapping and the
creation of the first phase ground models by the
Geo-Team. Peter Fookes has developed this to a fine
art in the first Glossop Lecture. An important warning
might be given, however, because this technique is often
misapplied when a fast-track approach is used on a
project. Here a geological model may not be available at
the outset. It is essential that it be progressively built as
information that becomes available during the course of
the construction. Failure to do this, for example, was a
primary reason why the Ok Tedi Dam disaster occurred
in Papua New Guinea where the existence of a relict
landslide was unappreciated until failure.
The process event regime
The initial specifications of each tectono-climatic area
also determine the processes, the materials, the forces
and resistances, flows and the rates of erosion and
deposition of the landscape. Operating within each area
there is a process regime (weathering, mass movement,
fluvial, glacial, periglacial, aeolian, coastal). Each regime
is characterized by an hierarchy of events distributed as
a sequence in time and space (Fig. 4) and described by
the frequency and magnitude statistics including the
duration and sequence of process events.
It is important to recognize that the process scales can
change over time. Events may occur more or less often,
be bigger or smaller. The change of energy, mass or
process rate may be sustained at a new level if a small
but permanent shift in the controlling variables takes
place (e.g. land clearance or mining) or return near to
their initial state if the energy pulse does not exceed
the elasticity of the system. (Fig. 5). Normally these
events are tectonic or climatic in origin, spatially and
temporally restricted.
River and coastal engineers, of course, understand
recurrence interval graphs, stage and discharge records
and wave height diagrams that occur on a design life
time scale but are less familiar with understanding
the eect of events that occur or have occurred on
a non-engineering geological framework. The chal-
lenge for the Geo-Team is to identify and interpret
the engineering significance of past events for all
processes.
The Geo-Team must also recognize the full implica-
tions of the varying time scales that may influence the
project, the exact state of the system at the start of the
job, the processes that are acting upon it and the changes
that might occur during the lifetime of the scheme. Not
to know these facts would be to play geomorphological
roulette with very poor odds of success (Fig. 6).
Effective events and thresholds
Each process has internal threshold values or external
trigger values at which the process becomes eective and
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 105

Fig. 4. The nested hierarchy of formative events at all time and space scales that determine land form. The regime of frequencies,
magnitudes, durations and sequences will be dierent for each tectonoclimatic domain (from Brunsden 1990).

sediment transport and landform change is mobilized.
Perhaps the easiest example to illustrate this is the
intrinsic strength thresholds of hillslopes. Some are
the original properties of the system specifications (e.g.
the peak strength mobilized during first time failure);
some are prepared properties of the system (e.g. the
fully softened strength); some are the failed properties
after a slope movement (e.g. the residual strength on
relict shears that form the basis for reactivation). There
are numerous unfortunate cases where failure to recog-
nize the dierent threshold values has led to serious
failure. It is important to recognize that they can them-
selves evolve as a result of time-dependent evolution of
the system resistances (Fig. 7).
Extrinsic events that cross these internal thresholds
are sometimes called the triggering events (i.e. the rain-
fall that triggered the landslide) but this is a simplistic
view of landscape change that needs to be built into a
context of long-term preparation and the inheritance
trends of the system.
The factor of safety of a hill slope is an example of a
combined value involving both internal resistance and
external forcing threshold values. These too can be
evaluated from process-response observations or calcu-
lated from ground models. The search for such values is
the essence of research on natural hazards.
Formative events
In addition to the slow operation of the most frequent
processes, each landform assemblage is also subject to
certain events at magnitudes that control the evolution
of the form of the land. The formative event may or may
not carry out the most work over time but it is the event
that is responsible for creating a form that persists for
long periods, despite the modifying actions of more
frequent events.
The frequency may be such that the form created,
often in a short time, persists until another formative
event occurs. It often has a lifetime longer than the
creation time (Fig. 8). This fact determines that
certain forms and deposits may persist for a long time.
There is often, therefore, a strong juxtaposition of
forms of dierent age and behaviour in the landscape.
Landslides are a very good example of this: for example,
the Bindon slide in Devon that occurred on Christmas
Eve in 1839 but still dominates the form of the coast
(Conybeare et al. 1840).
Event sequences
The series of events for each landform assemblage is
unique in detail of occurrence and sequence. No two
systems receive exactly the same number, sequence,
frequency, duration and magnitude of events although
in uniformitarian terms they are subject to the same
processes. It follows that there will be a spatial variation
in the response forms of neighbouring systems, solely
because of their history.
The exact sequence will be very important in terms of
whether an eective event precedes a weaker occurrence
(all the available work will have been done and there will
be a need for a recovery period during which the
preparatory processes provide further sediment for
transport). Crozier et al. (1990) describe such landforms
as suering from event resistance, Brunsden & Thornes
(1979) called them over-relaxed. A very good example is
a debris flow system that has suered a big storm,
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106 BRUNSDEN

O FUTURE
PALAE
Past system Future system
states states

Changes to system
Current system
during project
specifications
lifetime
FE
LI
TO GN
DA I
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Ge
olo
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SYSTE S
M STRUCTURE
Ty Geom y
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to as gth e t a e
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Fig. 5. The nature of pulsed and ramped events and the

Fig. 6. The Geomorphological Roulette.
definition of terms. In the upper diagram a stable series suers
but recovers from a high magnitude event. It then undergoes a
control change and the series moves to a new level. The former
is termed a pulsed event, the latter a ramped event. In the
lower diagram landscape change, at all scales is suggested to be
a series of responses to an event that is capable of causing
change. Where the events are very frequent the system is
transient. Slow progressive, uniformitarian change, is transient
but can involve very slow change in response to small, stable
series events.

evacuated all the material and requires a period of

weathering before it has enough debris to flow again.
Complex response
In addition to the event responses noted above, as a
system responds to an event, the forms will relax to a
state that is in harmony with the forces being applied.
Then for any set of environmental conditions, through
the operation of a constant set of processes, there will be
a tendency over time to produce a set of characteristic
landforms (Brunsden & Thornes 1979) (Fig. 5). This
involves internal feedback mechanisms and there are
four important responses:
Fig. 7. An example of time-dependent evolution of system
resistance. Weathering and progressive softening of the ma-
terials of a hill slope decreases the factor of safety over time
until an event occurs that intersects the failure threshold and
also shortens the time to failure. An earlier bigger event would
have achieved this eect earlier. This highlights one of the
diculties in making temporal predictions (Brunsden &
Thornes 1979).
(1) The event does not exceed the tolerance of the
system and no significant change takes place.
(2) The system is self-regulatory and adjusts in such a
way that it will tend to minimize or damp-out the
eects of the disturbance.
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 8. The lifetime of landforms. A model of the time it takes to make a landform, the lifetime of the form produced and landform
size. (Developed from Carey 1962; Ahnert 1981; Barsch & Stablein 1978; Dikau 1989; Brunsden 1993; In Brunsden 1996.)
(3) If the disturbance exceeds the ability of the system to
return to its previous form then the system will hunt
for a new characteristic state and form and to a
process rate that can be maintained at a new level of
geomorphological activity. There will then be a new
unity of landscape and a new interdependence of
process and form at all scales. This idea, that there
is an underlying order in landscape complexity, is
the basis of landform mapping and classification
(Ruxton 1968).
(4) If the impulse of change reinforces an existing trend
then the magnitude, type and rate of change will also
alter. Major change will occur if the induced change
crosses a critical structural specification of the sys-
tem. If the event is so big that it completely erases
the system then a geo-catastrophe may be said to
have occurred and the Earths surface is re-specified.
Definitions of time
It follows that we can now redefine change in time
(Fig. 8):
(1) Recurrence Interval: The length of time that elapses
between impulses of change.
(2) Reaction Time: The time required for the system to
notice that an impulse of change has been applied.
(3) Relaxation Time: The time required for the system to
respond and to reach a new characteristic state.
(4) Characteristic state time: the time during which a
characteristic state and form persists as a diagnostic
element of the landform assemblage. Also called the
landforms lifetime (McSaveney & Griths 1988).
(5) Transient Form Time: The time during which the
landscape attempts to reach a slowly changing form
but is continually being interrupted by another
impulse. The landforms are then rapidly fluctuating
107
and never attain a new, stable, slowly changing state.
Such forms are called transient landforms.
One of the most important aspects of this view of time
is to draw attention to how long it takes for a system to
recover following a disturbance such as forest clearance,
land use change, the eect of new urban runo, beach
supply depletion, groundwater extraction, pore water
recovery after excavation or channel change after flood
(Fig. 9). Available evidence suggests recovery times of
101 years for channels, 102 years for beaches and 103 or
104 years for hill slopes.
Change through time therefore becomes a series of
responses (Fig. 8) to all of the events experienced by the
system. In the field this directs attention to the fragmen-
tary landforms and material relicts produced by past
processes and that indicate the possible magnitude of
what might happen again in the future. It also suggests
that a search be made for events that occurred some time
in the past but whose eects are still aecting the system
behaviour. Herein lies a deeper understanding of natural
hazard and risk.
Preparation for change by time-dependent
processes
Each regime also sets in motion time-dependent changes
that progressively alter the balances between forces and
resistances by altering the material properties, the
geometry of the system, the water regimes and the time
to occurrence of landscape change. Preparation for
change occurs throughout the life of a landscape and
is expressed through the evolving internal thresholds
referred to above.
They include the chemical and physical changes of
weathering; the progressive softening of materials
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108 BRUNSDEN

Both the processes and the changes can be measured

and monitored over time although some changes are
very slow. It is important to distinguish whether the
system is becoming more stable and absorbing the eect
of the changes by some negative feedback mechanism
or whether the change is a reinforcement mechanism
leading to rapid and irreversible change.
The progressive softening of the London Clay and the
delayed reaction of the railway embankments discussed
by Skempton (1964) is the best-known engineering
example. Others are the changing permeability of the
land surface in Bahrain as the gypsum armour devel-
oped (Doornkamp et al. 1980), the changing instability
of a hill slope resulting from progressive erosion of the
toe or the slow gradient changes in a stream bed that
lead to sudden incision (Schumm 1973, 1977).

Change induced by forcing functions and

Fig. 9. Examples of relaxation curves. The time taken for a
system to relax toward a new slowly changing state after a
disturbance. (a) Recovery of soil depth in landslide scars,
North Island, New Zealand (Trustrum & De Rose 1987). (b)
Attainment of a slope angle stable against land sliding follow-
ing removal of basal erosion from the slopes (Hutchinson
1967; Brunsden & Kesel 1973).
(Skempton 1948) or the growth of armours and cements;
changes in permeability and groundwater levels; consoli-
dation and stress history; loading and unloading and
slow geometrical changes to relief and gradient due to
erosion or even changes to the urban fabric (Tables 12,
Fig. 10) (Brunsden & Moore 1999).
episodic change
The concept of complex response also generates the
fundamental proposition that, landform change takes
place as states of equilibrium, stability or tranquillity are
upset by complex episodic changes to the environmental
controls (Brunsden & Thornes 1979).
In addition to the disturbances applied to a system by
the normal events, each dynamic system is subject to
changes in the controlling parameters with time. The
main point being that all sites, forms and processes
will be subject to the episodicity and rhythms of Earth
that will alter the event sequences and magnitudes,
(Brunsden 1990).
Examples of forcing functions that aect the current
geomorphological systems are; the tectonic movements;

Table 1. Natural preparatory and triggering causes of mass movement (Brunsden 2000)

System Morphological Geological Control Hydrological Control

specifications Control
Erosion-transport Structure Lithology Ground Surface
processes water water

Preparatory Undercutting Stress relief Weathering Water Infiltration

process Headcutting Joint Regolith & table levels Runo
Sediment transport formation colluvium depth Freeze-thaw
Deposition Softening
Forcing Environmental/climatic change
functions Slope ripening
Anthropogenic changes
Specification Geometric change Permeability Regolith depth Flow net Infiltration
change Angle Strength Chemical & Pore capacity
Height physical pressure Runo co-
Length properties values ecient
Ice growth
e.g. Direct Critical slope Critical Critical depth Critical Critical
trigger strength pressure volume
e.g. Mass Debris slide Rock slide Debris fall Rotational Debris
movement slide flow
response
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 109

Table 2. Anthropogenic preparatory and triggering causes of mass movement (Brunsden 2000)
System Morphological control Materials control Hydrological control
specification
Construction Structure Fabric Ground Surface
water water

Preparation Cut/fill Blasting Pile Chunam Tunnel Catch

process vibration Rock anchor Shotcrete Drain Store
Pin Compact Supply Drain
Retain Grout Sewer Supply
Reinforce
Forcing Planning
functions Dynamic growth of city and infra-structure
Maintenance and control
Broken services
Specification Load Permeability Bulk Erosion Height Volume
change Unload Strength strength Strength Pressure Erosion
Slope Voids Voids Internal
form erosion
Weep hole
Eciency
Chemistry
e.g Direct Critical Critical Critical stress and strength
trigger stress strength
e.g. Mass All forms Rock falls All forms Rotation Debris flow
movement of slide & slides Non-circular
Response

active faulting and the seismicity of an area; the varying
sea levels experienced during the lifetime of the land-
scape that set the lower boundary conditions for
landform development; the perturbations that arise
from changes in the environment (climate-vegetation)
(Fig. 11, Wilson et al. 2000) and the occurrence of rare,
formative, catastrophic events that may change the
directions and magnitudes of evolution.
For engineering and planning it is very helpful to
determine whether a site has been or is being aected
by low sea levels, for example, if it is underlain by a
buried channel, by sea level rise or changing climatic
frequencies that cause increased erosion activity.
It is clear that the forcing functions are a further direct
cause of the diversity and complexity of the Earths
surface. These impulses are episodic and complex in
nature at all scales. Therefore the changes to the systems
will be episodic and complex (Dott 1983; Gould 1987;
Erhardt 1955; Reading 1982; Schumm 1973, 1977). If,
following Fookes 1997, Fookes et al. 2000) we intend to
build ground models some attempt should be made to
build in the scales of these episodically acting controls.
Sudden changes to a system can be produced by very
small but progressive changes to the structure or
process-response regime (Fig. 12). Disastrous quick clay
slides are an important example.
Inheritance
The operation of a system over time creates the scenario
for present activity and future change. It is our current
engineering site and situation. In our assessments of the
current properties of the site it is easy to forget that it
also has an inheritance. It is a system with a history, it
has been running a long time, has suered stresses, has
failed, been repaired and is considerably worn (Di
Nocera et al. 1995). Many of the most serious problems
faced by the engineer arise from this fact (e.g. The
landslides at the Channel Tunnel Portal, Griths et al.
1995) and many of our greatest mistakes have been
result of a failure to recognize the signs of age and wear.
The Sevenoaks Bypass, the 1962 Cli House failure at
Lyme Regis (Hutchinson 1984) or the Ok Ma Tailings
Dam landslide are obvious examples.
Inheritance places emphasis on the following
concepts:
Inherited Trends. Tendency and directions of change
actually in progress; e.g. tendency to erode, aggrade
or move the location of activity. In 1971, Bjerrum
described the morphological discontinuity or erosion
front where quick clay landslides were eating into a
marine platform, following stream incision in response
to the tectonic uplift of southern Scandinavia, as a
wave of aggression. The point reached by the aggres-
sion should be regarded as the most fundamental of all
morphological points to be brought to the attention of
the engineer. For example, Bjerrum (1971) provided a
solution to the control of the occurrence of quick
clay slides by armouring the streambed and preventing
the progress of the energy pulse. The stream banks
were not eroded nor were the streambeds deepened
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110
Fig. 10. Preparation processes for geomorphological change: an example for landslide classification.
and so the quick clay could not flow away from its
store.
Sensitivity. This is a measure of how likely it is that a
system will fail or change and involves a knowledge of
the inherited strengths and weaknesses, barriers to
change, location of change and stability. The factors of
safety measure this state and the system discontinuities,
such as the edge of a sea cli, often delimit the sensitive
areas. (Brunsden & Thornes 1979; Thomas & Allison
1993; Thomas & Simpson 2001).
The disturbing forces are normally considered by
geomorphologists to be the application of energy from
the specified tectonic, climatic, biotic and anthropogenic
controls on the geological, hydrological and morpho-
logical framework of the system.
The barriers to change are the complex resistances of
the system. These are:
% Strength resistance. The properties and structure
of the materials of the system.
% Morphological resistance. This is the distribution of
potential energy as elevation, made available as a
function of slope angle and relief i.e. the energy of
position. Sensitivity is the ability of the system to
BRUNSDEN
mobilize this energy. Relief barriers occur at all scales
and may become more eective through time, for
example by the deepening of rivers.
% Structural resistance. The design of the system, com-
ponents, controls, thresholds, and the way they are
linked. There are three elements;
% Locational resistance is the distance to a propagating
source of change, e.g. Centre of uplift; distance to
base level; closeness to an undercutting stream.
% Transmission resistance is the ability of the system
to transmit change. A high density of flow lines
(e.g. rivers, joints) and good linkage helps eciency.
Elements that are coupled together allow easy
change e.g. the linkage that allows the undercutting
of a slope by a stream, to translate sea level lower-
ing along a river and eventually to cause a landslide
on the watershed.
% Filter resistance. This is the way in which a system
absorbs or removes energy from a system. Energy
diusion across area and the use of energy absorbers
such as beaches and energy barriers such as waterfalls
are the main controls. All of these characteristics are
easily recorded on a geomorphological map.
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 11. The scales of environmental change: possible tempera-
ture changes (Wilson et al. 2000).
111
Fig. 12. An example of sudden change (deformation) to a
sample of quick clay caused by the application of small,
regular loads. In this case the operative factor is the fact that
pore pressures do not fully recover before the next load is
applied and therefore rises to a critical threshold for failure.
The resistance or state of a system also varies because
of the inheritance. The degree to which a system has
recovered from an application of stress is measured by;
% Its elasticity which is the speed of recovery (e.g.
channel form after a flood);
% The amplitude which is the zone of change from
which the system will return to its initial state (recov-
erable strain in a rock mass);
% The malleability or the degree to which the new
permanent state diers from the initial state (e.g.
peak and residual strength, brittleness).
% The ability of the system to recover is its resilience.
All of the characteristics noted above can change with
time but now there is the added spice of global warming
and the predicted scenarios for increasing summer
dryness-winter wetness, storminess and sea level. The
noticeable increase in recent years of flooding and
coastal land sliding and the real concerns of the
Environment Agency, English Nature and the shoreline
managers of the coastal District Council speaks for itself
on the importance of this issue.
Behaviour of the current system
The specifications of the original system (structure,
process domain, event regime); the changes made by
the time dependent preparation processes and the
inheritance of variably sensitive areas, trends of
change in operation, the current forcing functions
of environmental change, the process and residual
thresholds determine the behaviour of the current sys-
tems at a site (Fig. 13). Normally we inherit, at the start
of a job, a partially used, weathered and worn residual
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112 BRUNSDEN

Fig. 13. The concept of ground behaviour illustrated by a schematic model of a coastal cli. Previous maps of ground behaviour
have been based on landslide and material type and generalized assessments of movement, e.g. rotational sliding in clay. The method
proposed here is to record the sense and type of deformation e.g. contra-tilt, lateral shear, meta-stable sand collapse and
consolidation. (From Brunsden & Lee 2001.)

landscape. As time passes the systems continue to oper-
ate and it is these that we must manage. It should be
clear that we will do a better job of this if we understand
how the system was created and what is going on! The
behaviour may be stable, transient between dierent
regimes or reactivating. There will be varying degrees of
activity, rates, deformation styles, sediment fluxes and
reactivation of dormant episodic systems.
One of the most innovative achievements of applied
geomorphology for planners has been the development
of Ground Behaviour maps by the GSL-Rendel
Geotechnics-Geo-Team who mapped the landslides of
the Ventnor, Isle of Wight project (Lee et al. 1991ac) an
idea since employed by Halcrow at Cowes, I.O.W.
(Moore et al. 2000) and High-Point Rendel at Lyme
Regis. The idea is capable of considerable development
and can be extended to other processes.
Risk
The geomorphological framework outlined above has
encouraged the examination of natural hazards and there
is now a huge literature on the subject (Hansen 1984).
Where possible these problems are specified using stand-
ard mapping of sensitive sites and analysis of frequency-
magnitude statistics. The problem often occurs, however,
where there are few data and in those circumstances the
structured use of expert judgement, Delphi panels and
subjective probability assessments using event trees is a
useful tool (Roberds 1990; Hall et al. 2000). The advan-
tage of using risk assessment methods is that they oer
the potential to quantify the eects of the uncertainty
inherent in the operation of the processes. In this way risk
assessment aids and improves decision-making by allow-
ing consideration of a range of possible scenarios and
consequences, each with dierent probabilities of occur-
rence. It can be an iterative process, whereby the more
important issues which contribute significantly to the
total risk are identified, with the less important issues
screened out in a systematic and rational manner. Risk
assessment addresses a number of key questions:
% What could happen?
% Why such events might happen?
% What is the chance of it happening?
% What losses or damage could be caused?
% How can the problems be managed or reduced?
There are two main areas where geomorphology can
contribute to risk assessment for a process such as land
sliding, namely:
% Assessment of the probability of a particular type
of event or level of movement occurring (first-time
failure, reactivation or post-failure transformation).
% Providing an indication of the potential impact of a
particular type of event on the elements at risk.
A way forward
The complexity of many projects and the high standards
of the engineering-geosciences profession require that a
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
holistic approach is adopted to site investigation and
that, where possible, an integrated Geo-Team be
employed to carry out a Total Geology survey. To
contribute to this the approach to modern geomorphol-
ogy outlined above can be summarized for practical
purposes into eight tasks. The Geo-Team needs to
understand:
% The structure of the system: Describe the landforms,
structure, materials and climate.
% The process-response regime: Identify and monitor
the coastal, cli and slope processes; analyse the wind
and tidal records, map and monitor the landslide
systems.
% The event regime: Establish the nature of the events
that occur over time and space that might aect
the project, including their frequency, magnitude,
duration and sequence. Describe the episodic nature
of landscape change, the eective events and the
formative events.
% Preparation: Identify and assess the eect of time
dependent processes that prepare the system for
change and which occur during the lifetime of the
project.
% The forcing functions and changing controls: Assess
the likelihood that one of the controls of the system
might change during the lifetime of the project and
describe the changes that must be catered for in
design. This includes changing climate, rising sea
level and storminess. Map the progress of changes
already in progress.
% Inheritance and sensitivity to change: Determine the
trends of change and waves of aggression already
attacking the system, discover and define the sensi-
tive areas and determine the internal and external
thresholds at which failure, reactivation or deforma-
tion will take place.
% Behaviour: Record the behaviour of the system,
beach erosion and deposition, foreshore lowering,
cli recession, vectors of slope movement.
% Risk: Estimate the risks to the project.
These are now illustrated by a practical example
where the method has been used at all stages of the
project.
Part III: The Lyme Regis
Environmental Improvements
Scheme
The Geo-Team contribution
The Geo-Team
The Coast Protection Authority West Dorset
District Council.
Engineer K. Cole
Engineering Geomorphologist G. M. Davis
113
Oceanographers J. Purser, N. D. Healey-Cathcart
Instrumentation D. T. Savage
Geologist R. J. Tapply
Coastal Engineer N. S. Baker
Consultants Engineering Geology, Soil Mechanics
and Geotechnical Engineering
A. R. Clark, D. S. Fort, P. L. Martin, M. Sellwood
High-Point Rendel
Geomorphology D. Brunsden Kings College, London
R. Moore High-Point Rendel (now Halcrow Group Ltd)
E. M. Lee University of Newcastle
Geotechnical Engineering E. Bromhead Kingston
University
Coastal Consultants K. Powell, D. Ramsay H. R.
Wallingford
Geology R. W. Gallois British Geological Survey
The Lyme Regis Environmental Improvement Scheme is
a comprehensive large-scale project undertaken over a
wide area of coastline, including the oshore, to find
solutions to the problems of coastal landslides that have
caused substantial damage and disruption to property,
infrastructure and the coastal defences. In the last
century, 15 properties have been destroyed and many
more severely damaged, there have been several seawall
breaches and a coastal road to the east of the town has
been lost.
Lyme Regis is an ancient town on the west Dorset coast
in SW England (Fig. 14), currently a popular holiday
resort with a summer population of c.14 000, famous for
its place in the history of geology, as the home of Mary
Anning, for the quality of the fossils and central to a coast
designated in 2001 as a World Heritage site. The coastline
is protected by a unique 13th Century harbour that acts
as a breakwater to south and SW winds, a series of
seawalls, groynes and coastal defences. Over the years
these defences have been repaired and replaced in a piece-
meal fashion in response to storm damage and general
decay so that today the town is protected by a variable
complex of ageing structures.
Lyme Regis has a history of instability, which aects
the developed and undeveloped areas of the town, much
of which has been constructed on a series of relict sea
clis and degraded landslides. The seawalls were placed
at the toe of the steep and unstable coastal slopes
and erosion prior to their construction has resulted in
contemporary instability, and reactivation and regres-
sion of the landslides up to approximately 600 m inland.
The unprotected sea clis and the sea walls are also
being progressively aected as a response to continuing
coastal erosion, foreshore lowering, changing climate
and anthropogenic triggering. (Hutchinson 1984).
The responsible Coast Protection Authority, West
Dorset District Council, have initiated an extensive
series of multidisciplinary studies and investigations to
develop a strategy to upgrade the towns coastal
defences and to improve ground stability. The long-term
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114
Fig. 14. Location Map of Lyme Regis. From West Dorset District Council.
objective is to provide adequate levels of coast protec-
tion and to improve safety for the town and its residents
(Cole & Joy 1994). The project is currently in the
detailed design stage.
A striking feature of the project is that all investigative
and design aspects of the scheme have been based, from
the outset, on the work of a Geo-Team specially
appointed for the task by the Authority (Fig. 18).
This includes a specialist Engineering Geologist and an
Oceanographer on the Council sta, individual consult-
ants for each element, various sub-contractors and an
Engineer (High-Point Rendel).
There has been an almost seamless inter-disciplinary
interaction from the Geo-Team to the work of structural
engineers, ecologists, hydraulics research studies and
contractors including workshops and fieldtrips for the
technical sta. The management of the project, produc-
tion of reports and diagrams, finance and overall re-
sponsibility has remained in the hands of the Client,
acting as the Coast Protection Authority and not with
the Engineer. The Engineer is contracted for specific
tasks as the investigation proceeds.
Methods
Geomorphology
The underlying philosophy took into account many
aspects of the conceptual approach outlined in Part II.
The work included the construction of coastal process
and sediment budgets, mapping oshore geology and
geomorphology, the analysis of long-term geomorpho-
logical and climate change, landslide monitoring,
frequency-magnitude modelling, a consideration of the
time-dependent processes, ground behaviour and risk
BRUNSDEN
analysis for cost-benefit purposes. Even at the Concept
Design Stage the Geo-Team were included as the start-
ing point for discussions. The paper is therefore an
example of the use of the systems approach to current
engineering and planning problems.
Following a comprehensive search of archive
materials, standard geomorphological and geological
mapping was used to form the basis for geotechnical site
investigation design and the nature of the initial ground
models. They were also the basis for the modelling stage
of the slope stability studies, the beach sensitivity and
oshore work.
A desk study was carried out to analyse the long-term
coastline evolution and sediment budgets using histori-
cal charts (Fig. 15). This showed that there were signifi-
cant changes since records began in 1787. Analysis of
short-term beach changes and sediment budgets were
established using data from successive beach surveys
(Fig. 16). Aerial photogrammetric surveys gave precise
positions and orientations of the beach face and cli
lines. Seabed surveys comprising bathymetric surveys,
side scan sonar, and shallow sub-bottom profiling, grab
sampling, marine seismic profiling and seabed videoing
were used to compile accurate pictures of the elevations
and materials of the seabed. They were also used to
compile geological and geomorphological maps and to
provide a valuable link between the land and sea systems
(Fig. 1718) (Darton et al. 1981).
Ground investigations
The purpose of all these investigations was to provide a
deep understanding of the whole Geo-system of over
75 hectares of potentially unstable, developed land and
to confirm the nature, mechanisms and extent of the
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 15. Extracts from Historical Charts of Lyme Regis to
show shoreline changes.
instability in a wide temporal and spatial context. The
ground models (Fig. 19) were initially recognized from
the surface geomorphological features, then supple-
mented with data from previous landslide studies,
historical research, exposure logging and geological
mapping. Subsurface form was defined by the ground
investigation and verified by the monitoring programme
and finally drawn as comprehensive best fit landslide
models for stability analysis. The design of the network
of instrumentation and monitoring was determined by
specific earth science questions and the mapping pro-
vided clear guidance for the most eective positioning of
boreholes for the main ground investigation (Clark et al.
2000). The key techniques used within the ground
investigation are given in Table 3.
The stratigraphic correlation of bedrock across the
site using marker horizons was assisted by the use of the
characteristic signatures of the natural gamma traces
115
Fig. 16. Example of beach erosion/deposition surveys carried
out for the project at Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis. From
West Dorset District Council.
which uniquely distinguish individual horizons of
mudstones and limestone. This technique proved very
successful in confirming stratigraphic continuity
between boreholes and identifying intact bedrock
masses. Conversely logs, which showed disruption or
absence of the distinctive marker traces, were valuable in
distinguishing areas subject to movement and between
intact and disturbed material. These data were then fed
into the ground model interpretation.
Monitoring, early warning systems and
threshold values
The instrumentation installed during the investigation
forms part of a network of monitoring positions
throughout the town (Fort et al. 2000). The regular
monitoring of groundwater levels and records of move-
ment by the inclinometers (Fig. 20) is supplemented by
GPS (Global Positioning Surveying) of 70 permanent
ground surface markers. The results were used to refine
the interpretation of the ground models and to adjust
projected landslide regression scenarios (Lee et al. 2000).
The monitoring played a major role as an early
warning system for the onset of significant movements,
which presented a threat to public safety and property
during the design phase. The early warning function of
the monitoring is a key function for coastal sites in the
UK where major coastal defence and slope stabilization
works are required (Clark et al. 2000). At Lyme Regis
several years elapsed between the ground investigation
and design phases of the work and this time gap will
continue to completion of the construction of new
coastal defences and slope stabilization. This is inevi-
table due to the stages of design, procurement, environ-
mental assessment and funding approvals that have to
be completed prior to construction. Thus the monitoring
provides interim protection for the area during this
period. As part of the strategy for Lyme Regis a detailed
procedure has been developed to regularly review the
monitoring data and to identify thresholds of significant
 116
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Fig. 17. Geological Map of the coast and foreshore of Lyme Regis. (R. W Gallois and G. M. Davis for West Dorset District Council.)
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 117

Fig. 18. Generalized geomorphology map of Lyme Regis. (R. Moore, D. Brunsden, E. M. Lee, G. Davis for West Dorset District
Council.)

movement (Fig. 20), evaluate the consequences of
continued movement, establish communication routes
and nominate individual responsibilities and response
pathways. In the winter of 20002001, a landslide warn-
ing leaflet was distributed and the system was twice
called into operation for part of the town.
The Lyme Regis system structure
Tectonic framework
Lyme Regis lies on the western edge of the Wessex
Basin, a major Mesozoic-Tertiary sedimentary basin
that records the geological history and record of life
since the Variscan orogeny. It formed in response to
Atlantic opening and subsequent Alpine collision in NW
Europe. The structures are dominated by east-west
trending extensional faults that have undergone contrac-
tional reactivation. Also important are medium-large
scale folds that verge north and contain axes that are
parallel with, and adjacent to, the reactivated faults.
Toward Lyme the faults become much smaller and
shallower but still provide local variations in dip that
aect water movement. The small folds are cut by close
spaced systems of NW-SE and NE-SW conjugate faults,
with a small throw, that have a significant role to play in
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118 BRUNSDEN

Fig. 20. Examples of the piezometer and inclinometer plots

obtained for the Lyme Regis project. A most interesting
feature of this plot is that the points at which movement
commenced all fall at the same critical intrinsic threshold level.
This therefore becomes an important management and warn-
ing tool. The point A indicates where the recording interval did
not pick up the true beginning of movement.

Fig. 19. Construction of the Ground Models as each stage of
the investigation was completed.
the local orientation of landslides and the landslide
form. Overall the regional dip at Lyme is dominated
by the Marshwood anticline giving a 2-3 degree dip to
the SE (Fig. 21) that also facilitates seaward movement
of the landslide blocks.
Materials
The basin fill is Permian to Tertiary in age and is
approximately 3 km thick at the Dorset coast. At Lyme
these sediments comprise an interbedded sequence of
limestones, siltstones, clays and mudstones of the Lower
Lias. Three formations of the Lower Lias, the Blue Lias,
the Shales with Beef and the Black Ven Marls are
present and are overlain by Cretaceous sands and sand-
stones of the Upper Greensand (Table 4). A major
unconformity, the Middle and Upper Jurassic and lower
part of the Cretaceous being absent in Lyme Regis
marks the junction between the Lias and Cretaceous
strata. The Jurassic sequence has been known since the
early days of geology as providing one of the finest
sections of marine Jurassic rocks anywhere in the World
(Calloman & Cope 1995). The geotechnical properties of
the materials are summarized in Table 5.
In several boreholes, particularly on East Cli, heavily
disturbed clays were recorded. They had previously been
described by Hutchinson & Hight (1987) and are
believed to be associated with periglacial activity. The
position of these clays is at the bottom of the relict
landslide slopes but beneath the obvious landslide
materials. Similar materials can be observed in cli

Table 3. The Scope of the ground investigation at Lyme Regis

Exploratory Holes Instrumentation Testing

Boreholes 79 nr Borehole Inclinometers 34 nr Borehole natural gamma logging 873 m

Depth range 5-55 m Depth range 10-50 m
Total drilled 1776 m Total length 975 m Insitu permeability Tests 50 nr
Coring 987 m Standpipe piezometers 50 nr
Open hole 744 m Depth range 3-55 m Laboratory Testing Classification,
strength and chemical tests. See Table 5
Cable percussion 35 m Total length 784 m
Trial trenches 15 nr Automated loggers 27 nr
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 21. Geological Section at Lyme Regis (after House 1989).
sections at Charmouth and Seatown where they can be
seen to be associated with valley bulging. Because these
deposits occur at the foot of degraded former sea clis
they seem to form a variety of bulging associated with
permafrost at the base of the slopes. Because they are
also associated with inter-bedding shears they may also
be a form of lateral extrusion structures.
Hydrogeology
The hydrogeology and groundwater regime is highly
complex, but in general terms can be considered in
terms of the groundwater associated with the Upper
Greensand strata and the groundwater associated with
the Lias strata. High groundwater tables are present
within the relatively permeable Upper Greensand strata
above the sub-Cretaceous unconformity. The relatively
impermeable Lias strata below the unconformity
restricts downward flow of the groundwater so that the
Upper Greensand acts as a reservoir for the large
catchment above both of the study areas. Springs issue
at the unconformity, which provide a source of water
throughout the year to the unstable slopes below. High
groundwater tables are also present within the shallow
landslide deposits on the central and lower coastal
slopes, often at or near ground level.
Water may also be introduced into the landslides as a
result of dislocation of water pipes, sewers, septic tanks
etc. caused by ground movement, particularly as some
of the pipes are known to be damaged or blocked by the
accumulation of calcium carbonate deposits. This urban
system has grown with time and now forms an extensive
network. (Fig. 22).
Near hydrostatic groundwater pressures are main-
tained within the shallow landslide deposits, which may
locally become artesian. In contrast, groundwater press-
ures within the underlying deeper-seated landslide
blocks and in situ Lias are strongly sub-hydrostatic,
probably due to the influence of under-drainage into the
more permeable limestone strata (Fig. 23).
119
The Beaches
The Lyme Regis Geo-system consists of steep coastal
slopes within an asymmetrical or zeta bay that forms
part of the Chesil beach coastal behaviour unit. The
beaches of Lyme Regis are also arranged in
asymmetrical bays at smaller scales and are separated
from each other by the Cobb wall and the new Stage I
rock armour defences. Monmouth Beach (Fig. 24) is
made of flint cobbles and fill and is partially built
over. The relict cli now forms a degrading slope
behind the beach and has been developed in part for
housing.
Town Beach (Fig. 25) forms a complete zeta bay in
fine sand derived from the oshore area. It has a small
growing tombolo behind the Cobb, a severely depleted
area beneath the Marine Parade and a west-east trans-
port path toward Lyme Regis town. The relict clis
are now heavily degraded and developed and the
whole frontage is protected by a variety of sea walls.
The cobble beach is made of imported shingle and
pebbles.
East Beach (Fig. 26) is also an asymmetrical bay but it
is open to the east across the mouth of the River Char as
far as Golden Cap. The bay forms an easterly transport
system. The clis are partly protected by sea walls but
then become an actively retreating cli below the Spittles
and Black Ven landslides.
The oshore area (Fig. 18) consists of a complicated
alternation of exposed bedrock, shore platforms, relict
beaches and shallow channels. A pronounced channel
extends from the Town Beach to K12 m OD. This
channel is 3 m deep according to marine geophysics
(pinger survey) results, with medium/fine sands over-
lying thin gravel showing in grab samples and vibro-
cores. A second, less distinct, channel forms an
oshore extension of the River Lym. The channels are
filled with fine sand over thin gravels. The depth of
these deposits is usually less than half a metre but they
are occasionally up to three metres deep. Gravel is
restricted to a few small patches. The depth grades
gently to
12 m OD followed by a drop to K15 to
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120 BRUNSDEN

Table 4. Summary of strata and stratigraphy at Lyme Regis (Sellwood et al. 2000)
Period Formation with Typical Description Approximate
Thickness
(m)

QUATERNARY/ Superficial and landslide depositsderived from Cretaceous and Lower Lias, includes Variable
RECENT alluvial deposits, beach deposits, talus, landslide deposits etc. Landslide depositsa
classified as either:
Mudslide Depositsgenerally lacking in structure, highly disturbed and sheared and
characterized by the source material from which they were derived.
Landslide Blockscontain evidence of movement in the form of inclined.
bedding/laminations, original fabric and structure preserved to greater or lesser degree.
Disturbed Liascontains evidence of disturbance of original fabric and fibrous calcite
layers, characterized by micro-folding generally confined to Shales with Beef strata.
Debrisshallow surface materials lacking in structure, includes colluvium, head, talus
etc often containing granular material and not typical of the other landslide deposits.
LOWER Upper Greensand 18
CRETACEOUS Dense yellow brown silty fine sand with chert beds in upper 10 m.
Gault 1
Unconformity
Dense greyish green silty sand.
Black Ven Marls 35
Sti to hard, dark grey clay and very weak to moderately strong laminated mudstone,
with occasional beds of limestone and thin layers of beef (fibrous calcite).
b
Stellaris Nodule Bed (25-29 m above base of BVM)
Upper Cement Bed (16-20m above base of BVM)
Lower Cement Bed (10-13 m above base of BVM)
Shales with Beef 25
Sti to hard dark grey clay and very weak to moderately weak, dark grey laminated
mudstone, with thin layers of beef and occasional beds of limestone or stronger
calcareous mudstone.
Birchi Bed (Top of Shales with Beef)
b
Mid Shales with Beef (12-14m above Grey Ledge)
Table Ledge (5-7 m above Grey Ledge)
b
Fish Bed (1-2 m above Grey Ledge)
Blue Lias 19
Interbedded sequence of mudstones, limestones and siltstones.
Limestones thin/medium bedded, light grey and argillaceous,
generally moderately strong to extremely strong
Mudstones grey/dark grey, thinly laminated to very thinly bedded, locally calcareous
and weak to moderately weak. Also occur as sti/very sti fissured clays.
Siltstone grey, calcareous with strengths ranging from very weak to strong.
Grey Ledge (Top of Blue Lias)
Glass Bottle (0.5-1 m below top of Blue Lias)
Top Quick Ledge (1.5-2 m below top of Blue Lias)
Venty Bed (2.5 m below top of Blue Lias)
Best Bed (5m below top of Blue Lias)
a
Landslide deposit classification developed for the study. Limestone marker strata shown in italics, only marker strata at top of Blue Lias shown.
b
Marker strata which control landsliding on Example Ground Models.

K20 m OD at approximately half a kilometre from the
beaches. There is an area of old landslide deposits
(Fig. 18), channels, small breaks of slope and gravel
deposits that may represent a former cli line at

12 m OD. The post-glacial coastal cli position is
thought to lie approximately at this position with the
relict landslide deposits representing the remains of an
apron of debris in front of the abandoned periglacially
degraded sea clis.
Sea cliffs and slopes
The hill slopes consist of relict landslide systems that
extend back to the ridge tops and coastal plateaux. The
ground models show that four main mechanisms of
failure are likely to be operating. Mudslides occur on the
rear scarps of major landslide benches, locally on the sea
cli, and form large areas of the degraded post-glacial
landslide systems. The mudslides are relatively shallow
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 121

Average 11.7

Average 10.9

Average 11.7
Average 11
Ring shear
Phi deg

14.7
9.5

triaxial Phi deg
Eective stress

Average 19.7

Average 18.1
Average 21
12.5

Eective stress

Average 7.1

Average 11

Average 29
Cohesion
triaxial

kN/m3

0
1.42 (1.10-1.90)

1.43 (1.33-1.65)

1.58 (1.45-1.74)

1.63 (1.34-1.98)

1.96 (1.78-2.2)
1.44 (1.3-1.6)
Dry Density
Mg/m3

Fig. 22. Section of the artificial drainage map of the Lyme

Regis frontage.

1.88 (1.69-2.17)

1.92 (1.84-2.05)

1.99 (1.76-2.26)

2.24 (2.08-2.41)
Bulk Density

2.0 (1.93-2.1)
1.90 (1.80-2)
Mg/m3

97.8 (62.5-100)

98.5 (74.5-100)

98.3 (59.8-100)

98.7 (79.6-100)
% passing 425

99.4 (91-100)

97.2 (29-100)
72.2 56.8-95
microns

100
42 (33-62)

36 (25-46)

34 (17-50)

33 (13-59)

28 (21-37)
37 (17-57
Plasticity

39 29-46
Index %

30

Fig. 23. Schematic diagram of the nature of the ground water

system on the Lyme Regis frontage. The hydrostatic-artesian
64 (51-75)

64 (34-84)
71 (62-97)

63 (49-75)

61 (38-76)

60 (30-90)

52 (43-61)

system in the landslides contrasts with the under drainage in

Limit %

the solid geology Blue Lias.

Liquid

52
Table 5. Summary of geotechnical properties

(c. <5 m). Translational block slides underlie the lower

25 (22-29)

27 (18-38)

28 (21-36)

27 (18-35)

27 (17-38)

24 (20-30)
29 (22.35)
Limit %

and central slopes. The basal shear surfaces are typically

Plastic

between 5 m and 7 m depth below ground level, al-

22

though some deeper block slides may be present. The sea

cli and the seawall along the town frontage are under-
29.0 (18.9-40,6)

17.5 (11.6-26.4)
23.6 (6.2-36.8)

21.8 (8.9-43.7)

lain by active landslides, which are either translational

32.0 (9.2-43)
29.6 (17-38)
Content %

or rotational in form. The basal shear surface of these

34 (24-53)
Moisture
Natural

first-time failures often occurs at or below the base of the

26,5

seawall. On the upper slopes compound failures are

present and the basal shear surface is coincident with
the sub-Cretaceous unconformity, and the blocks are
Greensand
Black Ven
Disturbed

Landslide

with Beef

with Beef
Blue Lias
Mudslide
Material

block in

typically 10-20 m thick.

ground

Upper
Shales

Shales
Marls
Made
Type

The basal shear surfaces of the landslides in the

Lias

midslope position tend to be associated with the

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122 BRUNSDEN

Fig. 24. True colour air photograph of Monmouth Beach,

1995. (Copyright Dorset C.C.)

relatively competent beds of limestone and siltstone

within the Lower Lias, which may be traced more or less
continuously across the town. The shear surfaces are
developed in the clays and mudstones directly above
the limestone and siltstone beds. This gives rise to a
distinctive stepped morphology with landslide benches
separated by scarp slopes, the landslides themselves
often having a strong translational component parallel
to bedding.
The slope on the relict basal shears is controlled by the
geological structure and the previous west-east orien-
Fig. 26. True colour air photograph of East Cli, 1995.
(Copyright Dorset C.C.)
tation of the coastline. The basal shears of the currently
active mudslides at the base of the slope systems are
orientated parallel to the structural contours. In a few
locations, relatively deep-seated landslides do not
appear to be controlled by known marker strata, in these
instances the basal shear surface coincides with a zone
of periglacial disturbed clay, which has pronounced

Fig. 25. True colour air photograph of Town Beach, 1995. (Copyright Dorset C.C.)
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 27. Example of the Seismic traces of relict landslide debris
oshore. The debris lies in a shallow channel and is revealed by
contorted layers and side shears. It is almost certainly a planed
o remnant of a mudslide.
lateral extrusion structures (Hutchinson & Hight 1987;
Brunsden 1996).
Degrading sea clis cut into the relict landslide slopes.
These are now largely protected but active at the east
and west ends. The slopes are covered with landslide
debris and head deposits, probably formed during past
phases of slope instability during the Holocene and
lateglacial periods. To the west the slopes form the
Landslide Nature Reserve that is a National Nature
Reserve of active coastal activity (Conybeare et al.
1840). The active slips are progressively moving toward
Fig. 28. Average annual winter rainfall at Lyme Regis 1868-2000.
123
the town as Monmouth Beach develops and ceases to
give protection to the old sea clis. To the east lies
the Black Ven mudslide complex (Fig. 37; Brunsden
& Chandler 1996). This very dangerous slide is also
actively moving toward the town.
Climate
Lyme Regis has a temperate climate with an average
rainfall of 917 mm per annum evenly distributed
through the year but with an excess of c. 200 mm for
October-March over the summer months. Analysis of
rainfall records from Pinhay (3 km west of Lyme) for
1868-1998 reveals that the rainfall has increased by
approximately 10% over the period. There is a similar
trend (19%) for annual eective rainfall (precipitation
minus evapo-transpiration). The five-year moving mean
of the data series reveals a frequency of 20-25 years for
periods of increased rainfall. The series also records wet
year sequences when there are cumulative years with
an eective rainfall greater than the mean. Wet year
sequences of three years in length occur on a frequency
of 1:16 years but there are indications from the last 30
years that this may be increasing to 1:10 years and that
the duration of the consecutive years may be increasing.
These trends become more marked if October-March
figures only are used (Fig. 28). Occasionally very wet
(<1100 mm) single years are recorded at 1:12 years and
very wet winters (<700 mm) at 1:10 years (Table 6).
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124 BRUNSDEN

Table 6. The formative event hierarchy at Lyme Regis

Lifetime Event Type Data

100 years Occurrence Formative events. Humble Point 1740, Bindon 1839, Stonebarrow 11942. Extreme
events Black Ven 1958, 1994, 2000-1, Spittles 1986.
101 years Annual-seasonal Wet single years (1100 mm) 1872, 1886, 1891, 1912, 1914, 1924, 1946, 1960, 1979,
1994, 2000, (1:12 years). Very wet winters (700 mm) 1871-2, 1875-6, 1910-1,
1914-5, 1928-9, 1934-5, 1958-9, 1969-70, 1975-6, 1986-7, 1992-3, 1993-4, 2000-01
(1:10 years).
102 years Episodes Wet year sequences 1950-2, 1958-60, 1965-70, 1979-82, 1993-95, 1999-2001 (9 year
running mean of cycle of 25 years).
102 years 102-103 years Phases Human construction of the Cobb (13th Century) and sea wall 1787-1850s. Church
Cli walls 1910-1960. Little Ice Age 1730-1850 with increased landslide activity.
Due to Humble Point landslide and Cobb barriers, breakdown of beaches into
headlands and bays.
103-104 years Epicycle Rising sea level reaches base of Late Glacial degraded clis and solifluction lobes.
Abundant coarse beach material available. Production of coastal beach barriers.
103-104 years Cycle Pleistocene Ice Age. Old sea clis degrade, solifluction slopes and todays relict
landslides formed. Tertiary faulting and minor folding. Basin inversion.
102-103 years Forcing Temp. +3-4degrees Rain +12% Wet days increasing five times Sea level +50-60 cm
Coastal retreat <50 m.

Wind speeds range from 0.5-15.5 m/s with a mean of

c. 5.5 m/s. For extreme storms a 1:1 year return period
velocity is approx. 20 m/s, 1:10 year 23 m/s and a 1:50
year 25 m/s.

The process regimecoastal

Fig. 29. Wind Data for Portland 1965-69. (A. P. Carr pers
comm.)
The wind regime is shown in Figure 29. The dominant
wind in all months is west and SW but with significant
south and easterly components during February and
November. Historical evidence shows that there is a
tendency for a twenty-five year variation between
periods of dominant westerly and easterly winds perhaps
due to the eect of the North Atlantic oscillation and
that the wave and sediment movements on the coast are
very sensitive to this. Great care is therefore necessary in
the choice of data for modelling purposes. A frequently
used set of data from Portland for the 1980s period, for
example, is dominated by the Easterlies but this is not
the long-term dominant direction (190-225 degrees).
processes
Waves
The mean wave heights for the eastern Atlantic are in
the order of 2-3 m and a period of 8-9 seconds. Extremes
range up to 8 m at 12 seconds. In addition, the coast can
be aected by rare tsunami and exceptionally large
swell waves or storm surges (Dawson et al. 2000). For
example on 13th February 1979 a swell wave of 8 m and
19 second period overtopped Chesil Beach and the Cobb
at Lyme. Lyme Regis is sheltered by Devonshire Point
from the worst eects of the SW regime but data from
West Bexington suggest that the 1:100 year oshore
wave is 7.25 m. Large swell waves occur in the narrow
window of 200-240 degrees.
Inshore wave buoys record a mean wave height of
2.4 m, a 1:100 year wave of 6.3 m for a 12-hour storm
and 6.65 m for a six-hour storm. Hindcast wave con-
ditions for a point 100 metres oshore from the Cobb
are given in Figure 30. They show the strong eect of the
protective headland and the eect of refraction. South
and south-SE waves are dominant. Because the water
depths are shallow, sediment flows can be generated on
a regular basis, by the waves at the seabed and tend to be
parallel to the wave paths. The oshore movements are
weaker than the onshore elements but these are shorter
lived. The significant waves Heights <4.5 m for a 7 sec.
period. Under these conditions the fine/medium sands
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 30. Wave data for a point approximately 100 m oshore
from the harbour wall. Courtesy D. Ramsey, H. R.
Wallingford.
recorded by the oshore surveys will be in motion for
much of the year. Storm conditions are capable of
moving any available gravel alongshore.
Tides
Tidal variation of c.4 m occurs at Lyme Regis, 2 m
above and below MSL (Mean Sea Level) that is approx.
0.2 m OD. The spring amplitude is c. 1.9 m and storm
surges in a SW wind may attain +2.8 m SWL (Storm
Wave Level) OD for a 25 year return period Tidal
velocities are slow but typically 3 m/s under normal
conditions, 0.25-0.3 m/s during spring tides. The flows
are aligned parallel to the coast. Peak flows increase
from west to east, i.e. accelerating westward but are
slightly longer, at 4.4 km to the east. Tidal currents are
generally too slow to cause erosion and transport of
sand except in the rip current within the harbour
channel. When sand is disturbed by waves, however, the
east-going residual flow may support an eastward dis-
placement. Sedimentary forms recorded on side scan
sonar supports this conclusion.
Coastal sediment budget and foreshore
lowering
A simple sediment model is proposed in which the
materials originally available from clis and currently
125
from oshore are medium to fine sands with some
gravels. The gravels are largely confined to the storm
beach and are subject to alongshore drift to the east
with a small return into the harbour tombolo during
easterlies. Available observations of marker pebbles
suggest a maximum drift rate of 0.5-1 km per annum.
The sands are sorted with fines being winnowed oshore
and coarse materials moving into channels. During
storms these may be drawn down to c. 12 m oshore but
returned in constructive wave conditions. Movement
is damped by suspended fine sand and seaweed but
turbulence in the channels does channel the material.
There is a slight net movement onshore with an
increasing beach at the harbour but a severe loss to the
east. The storm beach has been steadily built over or lost
to the east and is now an artificially fed structure.
In the 18th Century, when Mary Anning first started
collecting fossils, there was once a continuous beach
along the whole of the Lyme Regis frontage. Today the
beaches are in long-term decline and are now a small
fraction of their original volume. The decline is part of a
natural process of fragmentation of the beaches along
the East Devon-Dorset coastline, which has been
exacerbated and complicated by the building of struc-
tures such as the Cobb and the sea walls (Brunsden
& Goudie 1997). Bathymetry, cartographic analysis,
topographic and side scan sonar surveys have shown
that the sea bed and shore platforms in front of the sea
walls have undergone considerable erosion and lowering
over the last two centuries (Fig. 31), such that the sea
walls exposure to wave attack has increased. There is no
longer any natural supply of beach forming shingle since
the Humble Point landslide in 1765 resulted in the
interruption of the west to east alongshore drift.
Landslide systems
Much of Lyme Regis is built on active, relict or
reactivated landslides. On the East and Church Cli
areas these include residential areas, the football ground,
main car park and the Charmouth Road. The lower
slopes are formed by actively unstable new slides. The
central and upper slopes are relict mudslides being
reactivated. The lower benches of the coastal slope are
failing in shallow mudslide and translational block slides
above the sea wall. The failures are c. 5 m deep and the
shear surface daylights in the sea cli c. 6-8 m above the
sea wall. The surface is controlled by the Fish Bed c. 2 m
above Table Ledge. At Church Cli the morphology
suggests that the lower slopes are failing in a transla-
tional block on the east but in very shallow slips parallel
to the cli face toward the west.
Above East Cli there is a typical mudslide cascade
rising through a mudslide bench controlled by a decol-
lement in the Disturbed Lias and then a series of
benched mudslides controlled by lithological benches in
the Lower Lias (Fig. 32). They are 5-6 m thick thinning
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126 BRUNSDEN

Fig. 31. Lowering of the foreshore of Lyme Regis from historical charts and hydrographic charts, 17871996.

Fig. 32. Ground model for the lower part of East Cli.

toward the leading edge. At the head, beneath Timber
Hill there are intact rotated blocks of compound land-
slides 10-20 m thick developed in the Upper Greensand
strata but with a shear surface coincident with the
unconformity on top of the Belemnite Marls.
The coastal slopes between the Cobb Gate and the
Harbour are formed by a variety of deep-seated failures,
and head deposits, extending around 500 m inland
(Fig. 33). These have been reactivated as sea level rose
during the Holocene Period. Although the construction
of seawalls has prevented further cli toe recession the
slopes continue to be aected by instability or slope
degradation because they had been cut by marine
erosion prior to protection.
From surface evidence and borehole investigations,
a series of interrelated translational block slides and
mudslides occur with basal shear surface elevations of
15-20 m OD. These crop out above the sea wall in the
east and within the retaining walls of the back yards of
the houses on marine parade. The slides are strongly
controlled by bedding and the Disturbed Lias, are
multiple in form with small grabens indicating their
translational nature. The important landslide forming
beds are the Mid-Shales with Beef and the Fish Bed.
The main slide units are the Langmoor Gardens slide
that is currently active and sits on top of the seaside
shelters! The Lister Gardens slide that destroyed Cli
House in 1962 (Hutchinson 1984) and is now reactivat-
ing. The Harbour Heights slide has caused severe
damage to houses in 1945, 1950, 1951 & 1962. The Cobb
Road slide has damaged the road and houses many
times since records began in the 1920s and is again
causing concern. Movements detected by the monitoring
and early warning system required the issue of landslide
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 127

Fig. 33. Ground Model for the eastern slip in Langmoor Gardens.

Fig. 34. Ground Model Lister Gardens. The upper diagram extends the profile to the upper levels above the Cobb Road.

warnings to 75 houses and actual movements on the
lateral shear surface required the evacuation of two
properties. The Cobb Road system has a smaller second
part under the chalet units to the west of the town that
shows small-scale movement. The ground models for
these systems are given in Figures 3335.
The Coram Avenue system (Fig. 46) is located on the
higher slopes of the town to the NW of Cobb Road. The
system comprises a series of compound failures developed
in Upper Greensand strata above the unconformity
with the Lower Lias. The basal shear surfaces of the
compound blocks are developed in the clays at the top of
the Black Ven Marls, with the blocks typically between
10 and 15 metres thick in this area. Mudslides may also
be present in the lower part of the system.
The event regime
Hierarchy in time and space
One of the most interesting aspects of the study is
the way it has drawn attention to the variety and
hierarchy of time and space scales involved in the
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128
Fig. 35. Ground Model for Cobb Road.
understanding of the coast and clis and the formative
events (Table 6).
The coastal clis are remnants of once more
extensive periglacial landslide slopes (Figs. 3638). To
the east remnants survive at East Cli, the Spittles and
Timber Hill the rest having been destroyed by the
growth of the Black Ven-Spittles-East Cli landslide
complex. On the western side of the town similar relict
landslides underlie the coastal and inland slopes of Lyme
Regis and these in turn merge into the Ware Cli slides
of the Landslide Nature Reserve. These relict slopes
were covered with landslide debris and head deposits
formed during past phases of landslide activity during
the Holocene and late-Glacial periods. This debris
formed a multi-lobate apron or accumulation zone at
the foot of the old sea clis that was rich in chert and
flint from the Cretaceous deposits and limestone blocks
from the Liassic. The evolution of the clis involved
distinct phases (Fig. 38) but generally became more
stable during the Late Holocene.
As sea level rose to the base of these degraded
pre-glacial sea clis, marine erosion removed the flint
and chert rich periglacial apron to form a massive
protective beach system that extended from the
National Landslide Nature Reserve to Chesil Beach.
The degraded pre-glacial cli system is thought to have
been c. 0.5 km oshore since the remains of the cli foot
landslides have been identified on the seismic traces at
this distance.
In 1765 and 1840 landslides at Humble Point to
the west and, in 1754 the connection of the Cobb to the
mainland, interrupted the supply of materials (Fig. 39).
The beach material drifted east without rapid replace-
ment and the headlands of Devonshire Head, Church
Cli and Golden Cap began to emerge as the coast
broke up into the separate bays of Monmouth Beach,
Town Beach and the East Beach (Lee & Brunsden 2001).
Monmouth Beach grew rapidly at first as the copious
supply of coarse pebbles beneath the western clis
moved east (Fig. 40). The clis behind the beach began
to reduce in angle since they were no longer suering
basal removal and the area was settled and built over.
At the rear the still degrading, abandoned clis still
represent a hazard from debris flows and falls and have
BRUNSDEN
still not reached a stable form after over 200 years of
protection. This is a considerable lesson to those who
advocate natural methods of cli stabilization using
beach protection but who may not understand the
mechanisms or timescales of adjustment over time and
space. Failures today are on the episodic scales of the
climatic regime.
Town Beach, Church Cli and East Cli began to
show an asymmetrical plan shape under the influence of
the dominant westerlies and the first vertical clis devel-
oped in the Blue Lias. The retreat of the clis was greatly
assisted during the 19th Century by intense quarrying of
the limestone ledges for stucco cement and massive
lowering of the clis to extract Ichthyosaur and Plesio-
saur fossils in the formative days of geological science.
Shore platform lowering of at least 2 m is known to have
occurred at this time and the Church Cli headland
itself was largely removed.
The erosion of the clis at rates as high as 0.5 m year
meant that the relict mudslide cascades were reactivated.
To the west massive famous failures took place in the
Landslide Nature Reserve, particularly during the Little
Ice Age, including the 1839 Bindon slide and the 1740
Humble Point failure. To the east failure took place
first on the exposed down drift part of the East Cli
asymmetrical bay at Black Ven. This reactivation of the
relict slides then progressed westwards as the asymmetri-
cal bay developed toward a stable plan form with
massive formative failures in 1958, 1969, 1986, and 2000
each successively moving the unstable zone up dip,
toward the west and toward the town. The instability is
known to have spread rapidly perhaps because the
materials and shear surfaces were at fully softened or
residual condition.
Current event episodicity, effective and
formative events
Current episodic processes are driven by the dis-
continuous response of the system to basal erosion and
by the rhythms imposed by the climate. Fortunately
understanding of this type of periodicity is improving as
a result of recent research on the rhythms of Earth. The
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 129

Fig. 36. The Spittles and East Cli December 2000 showing the development of a failure scar through the wooded area of Timber
Hill. With continued movement this has now reached the footpath clearly visible running across the fields toward the corner of the
football pitch. Bulging at the north side of the pitch is visible on the touchline and a small slip is seen on the edge of the car park.
The area is reactivating. (Source Digital camera, Alex Koh, University of Bath, pers comm.)

Fig. 37. Composite Geomorphological map showing the progressive development of the Black Ven, Spittles, East Cli complex
toward Lyme Regis. (Source Brunsden & Chandler 1996 updated.) Note the rapid changes between 19862001.
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130
Fig. 38. The evolution of the clis to the east of Lyme Regis since the last glacial period as an analogue for East Cli. (Brunsden
& Chandler 1996.)
Fig. 39. The evolution of Monmouth Beach. (Lee & Brunsden
2001.)
West Dorset system seems to be particularly vulnerable
to wet year, westerly wind, frequencies (Table 6, p 124).
The wet year frequencies, magnitudes and sequences
show a cycle of wetter than the 5-year running mean of
1:25 years; wet year sequences of three consecutive years
of 1:16 before 1932 and 1:10 after that date; single wet
years at 1:12 years and wet winters at 1:10 years. The
known pattern of landslide occurrence on the coast and
inland closely reflects these frequencies and provides a
strong indication of probabilities for risk analysis. The
very wet winters (<700 mm) of 1871-2, 1875-6, 1910-1,
1914-5, 1928-9, 1934-5, 1958-9, 1969-0, 1975-6, 1986-7,
1992-3, 1993-4, 2000-1 are all known to have been
eective landslide years (Fig. 41). This frequency
BRUNSDEN
Fig. 40. The re-orientation of Monmouth Beach as the unpro-
tected clis to the west continue to erode and the protected
clis under Lyme Regis degrade.
was therefore suggested, by the Geo-Team to be of
fundamental design value to the Engineers.
Some events must be regarded as formative in that
their scars and debris lobes still dominate the form of the
landscape and the operation of the sediment transport
system. The Humble Point landslide of 1740, the Bindon
landslide of 1839, the undated original Cli House
failure that continues to dominate the Lyme Regis
Marine Parade, Stonebarrow in 1942 and 2001, the
development of Black Ven in 1958 and 1969, the Spittles
in 1986 and western Black Ven in 2001 must all rank as
formative as do the original Late Glacial failures that
produced the characteristic forms of the Landslide
Nature Reserve and the periglacial slopes of the Cobb,
East Cli and the Spittles. By analogy the current
movements at East Cli suggest that another large event
is in preparation. In this case, however, there will be
severe damage to the eastern side of the town.
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
Fig. 41. The number of years with above average winter rainfall for 18682000 and the incidence of landslides.
Preparation
Time dependent processes
Independently of the event series, time dependent
processes are preparing the clis for change. Perhaps the
most obvious is the foreshore lowering and erosion of
the base on the clis by the sea. Although beaches or
the sea walls have protected part of the cli line and the
Marine Parade frontage over the past 100 years, the
landslide systems continue to respond to the eects of
erosion that occurred prior to this time. Comparisons of
the sea cli position on old maps (1841, 1888, 1960,
1995) reveal that there has been a significant coastal
retreat over this period with average recession rates of
70 m/150 years to 120 m/150 years at East Cli and
90 m/70 years at Church Cli before protection
(Fig. 42). Along Monmouth Beach and the Marine
Parade unprotected clis retreated at 0.3 m/year
between 1787-1854. Quarrying of the ledges during the
19th century and fossil collection accelerated these rates.
Where the sea cli has been protected several time-
dependent processes take place. The portion of the cli
above the wall degrades, weathers, softens, becomes
vegetated and fails in small shallow slips as it attempts to
reduce the slope angles to a stable long term state.
Where the sea walls end wave energy is concentrated and
the cli defences are outflanked creating a need for sea
wall extension or protection. The progressive softening
of the cli materials by exchange of chemical ions is an
additional important weathering process (Moore &
Brunsden 1996).
In addition, the building of the sea wall allows water
pressures to recover over periods up to a hundred years.
Before the wall the cli and foreshore were probably
maintained in suction because cli erosion is really
similar to the generation of continuously cut slopes. The
131
creation of a sea wall thus builds in a mechanism for
failure especially if the drains do not keep pressures low
or are not maintained. In Lyme Regis the drains are
known to fill with calcium carbonates and sulphates
over time spans of <40 years. The slopes of Langmoor
Gardens began to reactivate between 1902-1915, 41-55
years after sea wall construction, with further move-
ments in 1971, 1977 and 1988. Lister Gardens showed
distress in 1950 (90 years after the first sea wall) and
failed disastrously in 1962 after human interference
(Fig. 43). They are again failing 40 years after remedial
drainage. The Harbour Heights slide failed in 1945, 1959
and 1962, 85-102 years after the Marine Parade was
built in 1820. Cobb Road was damaged in the 1920s,
Cobb Terrace in the 1950s and the degrading clis
behind Monmouth Beach suered shallow slips in the
1959 wet year. The time for reactivation of the slopes
along the Marine Parade therefore appears to be on a
50-100 year time scale depending on scale, drainage and
degree of building cover. It should be noted that this is a
reactivation model not true progressive softening lead-
ing to first time failures. Preparation for failure should
include the history of human use, construction, drainage
and lack of maintenance.
In summary, therefore, the coastal slopes of Lyme
Regis have built into them several reasons for the loss
of strength and for stress increases that require quite
sophisticated understanding when included in risk
scenarios.
Forcing functions
Climate
Recent climatic modelling by the Hadley Centre
(Houghton et al. 1990; SCOPAC 2001) has predicted for
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132 BRUNSDEN

Fig. 42. The retreat of the Spittles and lower East Cli since 1841 as shown on successive O.S.
Maps. Comparison with the geology map (Fig. 17) shows that the aggressive wave of erosion
is eating back up dip. There are three systems shown. It the two western systems develop in the
same way as the Spittles the road to Lyme Regis is clearly at risk.

Fig. 43. Record of landslide damage at Lyme Regis.

the South Coast of Britain: a future decrease in summer winter rainfall (December, January, February) equiva-
rainfall and an increase in summer temperatures. lent to 0.5 mm/day by the year 2100 i.e. an increase
Worryingly, it also predicts an increase in the average of c. 25% from the current winter daily average of
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 133

Fig. 44. Winter rainfall return period for Lyme Regis showing how the frequency of events at dierent magnitudes might change if
current global change warnings are accepted. For example a 100 year rainfall of 500 mm between December and February becomes
a 30 year rainfall after 25 years and 12 years after 50 years of change. The current landslide frequency of 1012 years becomes
2 years.

c. 2 mm/day; an increased frequency of wet days (rain-
fall >25 mm), expected to be up to 4-5 times more
frequent in wintertime and a possible increase in
storminess.
The implications of the predicted increase in winter
rainfall on landslide stability are likely to be particularly
serious, given the sensitivity to groundwater. Figure 44
presents a plot of the estimated return periods for winter
rainfall (December, January, February) totals of dier-
ent intensity. The plot shows the rainfall totals that may
be expected to be equalled or exceeded, on average, for
particular recurrence intervals and reveals an almost
linear relationship for return periods above 2 years. A
crude estimate of the impact of global warming can be
gained by increasing the winter rainfall by 12.5% over
the next 25 years and 25% over the next 50 years.
Assuming that the pattern of the rainfall events remain
similar, it is possible that what is now a 100 year rainfall
total (around 520 mm) could become the equivalent of a
1 in 30 year rainfall total in 25 years (annual probability
= 0.03) and a 1 in 12 year rainfall total in 50 years
(annual probability = 0.08). This suggests that there
could be a significant increase in the frequency of wet
years (possibly 8x increase) and, hence, potential land-
slide triggering events over the next 50 years. These
figures suggest that every second year would be a
landslide year and that many years would fall into a
continuous failure sequence.
Sea level rise
Sea-level rise also presents an important threat to
landslide stability. Tide-gauge records suggest that there
has been an increase in mean sea level around the UK
of between 0-4 mm/year over the last 100 years or
so (Woodworth 1990). The Second World Climate
Conference (Jager & Ferguson 1991) suggest that there
could be a rise of between 500 and 700 mm over the next
100 years, primarily due to the thermal expansion of the
oceans. Bray et al. (1997) suggest that the combination
of historical trends of sea-level rise and an acceleration
in sea-level rise caused by global warming could result
in rates of around 6-9 mm/year on the central parts of
the south coast of England. This combined rate would
be more rapid than any recorded for this region over
the past 5000-6000 years (Shennan 1989; Shennan &
Woodworth 1992; Woodworth et al. 1991).
It is worth noting that Bray & Hooke (1997) have
predicted that soft cli erosion on the south coast of
England could increase by 20-130% over the next
50 years.
Along Town Beach and Church Cli the more fre-
quent extreme sea levels will increase the likelihood of
beach loss, foreshore lowering, increased water depth
and wave height, wave loadings, undermining and sea-
wall failure, with obvious implications for landslide
reactivation. Already the footings of the sea wall are
exposed. At Town Beach estimated foreshore lowering
adjacent to the sea wall of 1-2.5 m has taken place
between 1860-1997 based on the current shore platform
levels and the relict levels behind the sea wall. Oshore
lowering is between 0.25 and 4.0 m. In consequence
there is a long term deterioration in the condition of the
sea walls.
The consequences of this are that if the sea wall
fails and there is a first time failure in the Blue Lias,
there will be rapid coastal retreat, a reactivation of the
East Cli and other mudslides and a serious risk to the
public.
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134
Inheritance
The main trends inherited from the past are the rise in
sea level, a longer contact time of the sea with the sea
wall and the cli under storm conditions, long term
depletion of the beaches, the development of the
asymmetrical bay plan form of the beaches and the
reactivation of the periglacial legacy of disturbed clays
and landslide systems.
The beaches are very sensitive to increased wave
energy. The fine material is staying in motion for longer
periods and the coarse storm beach is mobile. Newly
filled beach material is vulnerable to rapid sorting and
on East Beach has moved at approximately 0.5 km per
annum to the east. It is essential to reduce this activity
by improving the terminal barriers to movement.
The unprotected clis too are very sensitive to
foreshore lowering and increased erosion because these
are sending new waves of aggression upslope. Particu-
larly sensitive are degraded clis at the western end of
Monmouth Beach where the beach is reducing and the
end point of the sea wall at East Cli.
The landslide systems are composed of closely inter-
related elements, so that ground movements in one area
may directly aect the stability of other parts of the
system by loading or unloading. The stability of the
overall system is thus very sensitive to local destabilising
influences such as changes in drainage, or cut and fill
operations and thresholds of movement are often
reached. These values will be vital markers in slope
design (Fig. 20).
Behaviour of the system
The foreshore and beach systems
In the 18th Century there was a substantial continuous
beach along the whole of the Lyme Regis frontage but it
is now in long-term decline and a small fraction of their
original volume. The foreshore is lowering and the beach
to the west is reduced to the basal boulder ramp of
limestone blocks. The interruption of the alongshore
drift system by the building of the Cobb still operates as
a major barrier but the drift continues to cannibalize the
beach to the west. It is now developing as a swash
aligned system. The western tail of the beach is therefore
moving westward to expose areas of degraded relict sea
cli. Serious and dangerous debris sliding is episodically
moving eastward toward the town and this are also
reactivating relict systems in the mudslide cascade
above the clis. The exposed clis to the west are now
rapidly eroding at up to 1 m/year and the coastline is
re-orienting toward the SW. The sediment budget
during the 1990s was a total output of 2600 m3 mainly
due to the removal of gravel to feed Town Beach. Since
this has now stopped the budget is probably static or a
small net loss due to attrition and burial oshore.
BRUNSDEN
Town Beach no longer receives a supply of gravel and
the storm beach is supplied by beach feeding. The main
behavioural problem is that significant loss takes place
toward the east and the Town system needs to be
converted into a closed system for the coarse fraction.
There are significant volumes of sand oshore but this is
mainly fine grained and is winnowed away from the
beach. There is a small supply of medium sand some of
which is transferred by diraction into the tombolo
between the harbour and the North Wall rockery. The
growth of the tombolo is very sensitive to the orientation
and length of the North Wall rockery. The foreshore,
rock ledges and base of the sea wall has undergone
significant erosion in the past two centuries and together
with sea level rise the water depth has increased and
wave action increased. The age of the walls and the
undermining means that the sea walls are in need of
heavy remedial works to prevent failure and to halt the
movement of the slides beneath and above the frontage.
At East cli, similar conditions prevail and remedial
works are required. Attention must also be paid to the
end point of the sea wall where rapid erosion has been
taking place and emergency rock armour employed.
At each of the beaches one of the first observations
made was that the characteristic plan form is that of an
asymmetrical bay and that this will develop wherever
free retreat of the cli can take place on the down drift
side of a barrier due to the diraction eect of the
dominant wave. At Monmouth Beach it can be demon-
strated that a wedge shaped beach c. 3 times longer than
the length of a drift barrier develops (behind the barrier)
if there is enough material. These are regarded as
fundamental design guides for the remedial works.
The slope systems
Above the clis the main areas of relict slides are all
showing movement. The geological structure contours,
topographic ground surface contours and ground move-
ment vectors (determined from GPS and inclinometers)
have been plotted within each of the landslide system
boundaries and are shown in Figures 4546. The
models successfully described the mechanisms and the
extent of the landslide systems, and showed that there
is potential for the contemporary widespread ground
movement to continue in the form of slow almost
continuous creep of small magnitude, and significant
sporadic landslide events involving much larger
movements.
On the Cobb Gate-Harbour systems (Figs. 4546)
nearly all the vectors have a southeasterly orientation.
The local variation in the orientation of the vectors,
between approximately 120( and 168(, is easily ex-
plained by the three dimensional shape of the separate
shear surfaces, the geological structural control espe-
cially the fault lines that cross the area and the dip into
the Cobb syncline. The original topography and the
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 135

Fig. 45. Ground behaviour for Cobb Road to Cobb Gate Lyme Regis showing vectors of movement and failures. The bold lines are
the outlines of the landslide system boundaries used in the stability analyses.

Cretaceous unconformity still control the movement
pattern on the relict slides above the Holmbush car park
but has been lost elsewhere.
The East Cli systems extend over a kilometre inland
from the high water mark. The landslides consist of
many interrelated elements such that stability in one
area may aect the stability of other parts of the system.
It is therefore of concern that the landslides formed as a
result of marine erosion prior to the construction of the
coastal defences have both reactivated ancient landslide
systems and first time failures. Today there are wide-
spread ground movements over most parts of the sys-
tems and failures in 1978 caused disruption and loss of
property. The current movements are facilitated by the
gentle dip of the rocks to the sea by very high ground
water levels and by the retreat of toe slips across the
main landslide axis. Evidence from Black Ven and the
adjacent Spittles system which is advancing toward
the town suggests that failure will be sudden, large scale
and destructive to property, roads and utilities over a
wide area.
A very striking feature of the behaviour map for East
Cli (Fig. 46) is the dierence between the movement
vectors of the relict mudslide that follows the topo-
graphic slope and those of the disturbing toe slips that
are cutting back up dip to remove the toe of the relict
slide. The development of the asymmetrical bay form
now promotes a true up-dip movement as the shoreline
and the strike become parallel.
At the head of all the systems there has been ground
movement, small rotational failures, cracking of struc-
tures and roads. All are indications that the pre-wall
aggressive degradation wave is still progressing. At each
end of the town the massive Black Ven and Ware Cli
systems are moving toward the town in a giant pincer
movement. It is a daunting prospect (Fig. 47).
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136 BRUNSDEN

Fig. 46. Ground behaviour for East Cli. It is important to note that the relict mudslide reactivation follows the topographic slope
and palaeo-coastline orientation and the recession of the sea cli slides follows the geological dip. In eect this means that the
recession is cutting the toe away from the relict mudslide. The bold lines are the boundaries of the landslide systems used in the
stability analyses.

Quantitative risk assessment
The approach and the value of the Geo-Team
The problems at Lyme Regis do not lend themselves to
conventional methods of extrapolating past recession
rates, because the coast defences have prevented erosion
for a long period and because the coastal retreat is
intercepting the pre-existing weaknesses and movement
vectors of the relict systems.
It is a central message of this paper, however, that
the use of a Geo-Team and the employment of a
systems approach encourage a structured use of expert
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE 137

Fig. 47. A Digital Terrain model (DTM) for the dierence in elevation of Black Ven caused by landslide activity and coastal erosion
between 1958-1976. B. DTM for 1976-1995 also including the Spittles area. The contours are in 5 m intervals of removal (erosion)
of material and accumulation (deposition) after a mudslide event. (Source: Dr J. Chandler, pers comm. but see Brunsden &
Chandler 1996.)

judgement and application of subjective probability

assessment to the problem.
The method involves the construction of event trees
from the understanding of the way the components of
the system are inter-related, the data on ground
behaviour in space and time and all the accumulated
wisdom of the project. These scenarios provided a
framework for assessing landslide risk and for testing
the economic viability of dierent coast protection and
landslide management options.
A range of landslide reactivation scenarios were
identified, each involving an inter-related sequence of
events driven by an initiating event (i.e. seawall failure Fig. 48. Typical landslide reactivation scenario for East Cli,
or high groundwater levels) and propagating conditions Lyme Regis. (E. M. Lee, pers comm.)
(e.g. high groundwater levels, progressive removal of toe
support). These scenarios are based on the geomorpho- has already been described by Lee et al. (2000) and the
logical understanding of landslide behaviour developed original work Hall et al. (2000) has been awarded two
by the project, the likely reactivation sequences, accurate prizes by the Institution of Civil Engineers. It is there-
knowledge of the stability of the landslide systems and fore only briefly illustrated here with a Lyme Regis
the interrelationships between adjacent landslide units. example (Figs 4849).
Each scenario involves the progressive inland
expansion of the wave of aggression, as pre-existing
Discussion
landslide units are unloaded, in turn, by the movement
of the down slope landslide units (which provide passive The vision of the ocers of the West Dorset District
support to the upslope units); each phase of reactivation Council for the investigations undertaken at Lyme
is also promoted by the occurrence of wet year Regis, for the future protection and environmental
sequences and high groundwater levels. This approach enhancement of the town, was that they should be
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138
Fig. 49. An event tree for East Cli, Lyme Regis. (E. M. Lee,
pers. comm.)
holistic in approach with several disciplines contributing
to a greater, in depth understanding of the natural
conditions. A second requirement was that the work
should be undertaken in a transparent way with regular
reports to the town on the progress of the investigations
and a willingness to take town suggestions and
improvements into consideration.
The procedures adopted have been extensive, sys-
tematic and multi-disciplinary in nature. Central to this
process has been the creation of a Geo-Team because
the wish was to make the investigation, solutions and
designs environmentally compatible and based upon the
lessons that the landscape itself was suggesting. The
primary task was therefore to try to understand what
the natural system itself was trying to achieve and to
discover the geologically stable foreshore, coastline,
slope and groundwater conditions as a basis for
Geo-Design.
The Geo Team has been included at all stages and
meetings. Geo-Data and the Geo-System conceptual
approach have been utilized throughout the project and
this has been achieved by placing responsibility for
co-ordination in the hands of the Senior Engineering
Geologist of the Client rather than with an external
Consulting Engineer. It should be emphasized that the
project is now in the detailed design stage but that the
natural system is still the starting point for design
Brainstorm sessions.
Geomorphology was a strong component of the
Geo-Team because the environment is dominated by the
coastal process and palaeo-slope conditions at the site.
The systems approach to modern geomorphology
proved to give a very sound conceptual basis to the
understanding of the problems faced by the town and
exactly complements the geological interpretations of
structure, groundwater and materials. The intention is to
continue to review performance through the construc-
tion and maintenance phases in terms of the landform
system stability.
BRUNSDEN
New insights
The approach has yielded several important insights to
the old game of eye for country.
(1) The use of detailed geological and geomorphological
mapping to describe the structure of the system
again proved to be a successful guide to the identi-
fication of the individual system components, land-
slide subsystems and the interrelations between them
and enabled a very ecient site investigation to be
designed.
(2) The wide spatial area studied by the Geo-Team drew
attention to the natural coastal patterns and pro-
vided a sound understanding of the situation of the
project area within the coastal sediment cells, cli
behaviour units and the evolution of Lyme Bay
itself. The spatial connections to the sediment supply
units of the Landslide Nature Reserve and to the
Chesil Beach sediment sink were quantified and the
environmental impacts easily displayed.
(3) The preliminary ground models constructed from
the mapping programs were subsequently only
modified in detail by the detailed ground investi-
gation and the results were extrapolated with
considerable confidence.
(4) The intensive study of the coastal and slope process
regime using advanced oceanographic techniques
and comprehensive monitoring of each geomorpho-
logical unit gave an in depth understanding of each
unit and the inter relationships between them. In
practice this means that the solutions are more
cost eective because there is more understanding
of system behaviour. For example the selection
of a cost eective Factor of Safety is enabled if
knowledge of the unknowns is reduced.
(5) The knowledge of the episodicity of the events, their
eectiveness, changing frequency and formative
threshold values gave great confidence to the open
forum panel discussions for risk analysis because the
probabilities could be calculated with some scientific
basis.
(6) Perhaps the greatest improvement in understanding
derived from the wide range of time and space scales
considered by the team (Table 6). This ranged
from long term structural geology and lithological
considerations, to Quaternary landslide events,
Holocene environment and sea level changes, millen-
nial scale coast evolution models, centennial scale
archive and cartographic reconstructions of the
coast and foreshore erosion, decadal knowledge of
climatic events and landslide frequency and daily or
hourly water and deformation monitoring. Space
scales ranged from the tectonic setting of the
Wessex Basin to the contents of one borehole or the
aligned particles of one shear surface. This under-
standing gave great economies of scale in that each
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THE 5TH GLOSSOP LECTURE
investigation threw light on other investigations at
dierent scales and made the integration of the
sub-disciplines complete. In particular the depth of
understanding of space and time ensured that the
site was understood in a wide evolutionary context.
This gave an appreciation of the eect of proposals
on neighbouring systems so that extrapolation of
results could be made with confidence.
(7) The emphasis on the inheritance of the system
promoted understanding of:
(a) The sensitive forms created in the past (e.g. relict
shear surfaces, lateral expansion of clays). This
determined the ground model locations, an
understanding of the need to prevent unloading
and a detailed analysis of residual strength
conditions.
(b) The trends of evolution (e.g. the reactivation of
the periglacial landslide slopes of Black Ven, the
development of the asymmetrical bay forms and
the diminution of the beaches). This suggested
that every eort should be made not to reacti-
vate the sensitive relict landslides and that the
sea walls must be strengthened. The observation
that the beach was attempting to develop a
naturally stable configuration, suggested that
a combined solution of beach provision and toe
weighting should be investigated. This became a
key indicator for concept and detailed design.
(c) The action of the forcing functions that alter the
aggression of the system. These include. sea level
rise, increasing winter rain and wet years, pore
water recovery and growth of the urban system.
It was clear that during the design life of
the project these changes would mean that the
systems would be destabilized.
(d) The historical surveys and beach monitoring
programs vividly portrayed the long-term dimi-
nution of beach materials, the limited supply
from the clis or the alongshore stores and the
cannibalization of upstream beaches. The coast
is witnessing a breakdown of the Holocene
beach system into pocket beaches and headlands
that have a finite and diminishing volume. It
became obvious that the Town Beach could not
be fed from the Monmouth Beach (a popular
local solution!) and that external sources of sand
and gravel would be required.
(8) The space-time understanding and the knowledge of
the inheritance and evolution of the system encour-
aged the use of space-time analogues of what to
expect from the site systems if no action is taken.
For example the intensive studies of Black Ven
since 1946 and the observations of the Spittles
reactivation since 1978 were applied to the dormant
(?) East Cli system (Fig. 47) and clearly portrayed
what could happen if the relict East Cli system was
139
unloaded by coastal cli recession and allowed to
unzip. The analogue in this case lent great urgency
to the need for action and strong justification for
funding.
(9) The current behaviour of the system and the detailed
modelling proved vital to determining decisions that
had to be made throughout the project:
(a) As noted above, the tendency for the coastal
plan form and foreshore lowering to adopt a
natural asymmetrical bay form became a key
design indicator for the adoption of a stable
coastal form. The model identified the areas of
beach accumulation and stability, the portions
of the sea wall vulnerable to erosion and the
transport pathways. Significantly it also sug-
gested a stable advance the line shoreline
configuration and end wall design.
(b) The understanding of the slope models, the key
role of the Cretaceous unconformity as a source
of groundwater, the distribution of the perched
water tables in the landslide units, the under
drainage in the Blue Lias and the explanation of
deeper shears as lateral expansion forms gave
sound reasoning for the adoption of an innova-
tive range of civil engineering slope stabilization
techniques that answer specific Geo-Questions.
In particular the knowledge promotes the use of
uncommon drainage arrays for under drainage,
precisely located to intercept layers in the Blue
Lias that carried water and the shear surface
concentrations. These were system specific and
therefore cost eective.
(c) The recognition that worst case groundwater
conditions were attained in many of the systems
on the marine parade and the identification of
clear threshold values at which movement began
gave precision to the factor of safety calculations
and a monitoring target for groundwater man-
agement as well as a defensible rationale for the
operation of public warnings.
(d) Because investigations, public consultations,
environmental impact studies and permissions
and funding negotiations take so long it is
essential, in an area that is visibly unstable, that
an early warning system is employed. The use of
the geomorphological map of systems overlain
on the town map, and the monitoring network,
provided a clear justification for the closure of
two houses and the application of two landslide
warnings during winter 20002001. It was here
that the original vision of regular public consul-
tation proved of vital importance.
(e) The clear mapping of local loading and unload-
ing of landslide units at a small scale allowed an
unusual level of detailed design solutions as well
 Downloaded from http://qjegh.lyellcollection.org/ by Tint Lwin Swe on March 11, 2017
140 BRUNSDEN
as an appreciation of the sensitivity of dierent
components of the system.
(10) The recognition of successive waves of aggression
and of the inter linkages between the system ele-
ments enabled the construction of event trees based
upon detailed knowledge of the sediment and water
cascades. The work of the open forum panel was
therefore based on a clear scientific rationale and
the risk analysis could be used with confidence. The
combination of these factors together with know-
ing the exact system boundaries of each cli behav-
iour unit then formed the basis for cost benefit
studies based on the area first aected and expan-
sion during time if the system were allowed to
reactivate and unload successively higher systems.
The cost-benefit calculations for cli recession
therefore have a theoretical underpinning that
stems from Geo-System behaviour considerations
rather than standard recession extrapolations from
past performance shown on historical maps. There
was thus a direct application of the work of the
Geo-Team to the costing of the project.
Acknowledgements. Particular acknowledgements are grate-
fully given to High-Point Rendel members of the team both for
their contribution to the Lyme Regis project, to this paper and
for their very generous sponsorship of the publication of this
paper.
This lecture drew freely from the unpublished files of
Geomorphological Services Ltd, High Point Rendel, Sir
William Halcrow and Partners and W.S. Atkins, to whom we
(the Geo-Team) are very grateful. It has benefited from
detailed discussions with Peter Fookes, David Shilston, Saul
Pollos, Mark Lee, Geo Davis, Kevin Privett and Helen
Knapp. The sound advice of the definitive book Geomorphol-
ogy and Environmental Management (Cooke & Doornkamp
1971, 1990) is also acknowledged. The whole lecture should be
regarded as the product of working with many engineers,
planners and geomorphologists over a long life in the academic
world and the realms of consultancy. It is impossible to say
where ideas borne of experience come from but I must
acknowledge the stimulus of Peter Fookes, John Doornkamp,
David Jones, Ron Cooke, John Thornes (for Part II), Andrew
Goudie, John Hutchinson, Michael Crozier, Noel Trustrum,
Dick Martin, Mike Sweeney, Jim Griths, Robert Allison,
Roger Moore, Mark Lee, Alec Koh, Helen Rudkin and Jim
Chandler all of whom have unwittingly contributed to this
paper! Unfortunately, for space reasons this historical part of
the lecture has been deleted. This is unfortunate because the
first part of the lecture was a tribute to those who had helped
me in my career and been responsible for a large part of
applied geomorphology in the UK.
The Geo-Team responsible for Part III of the paper should
be regarded as joint authors. They have been unstinting in
their support. We thank West Dorset District Council for
permission to publish this paper and the Department of
Environment, Food and Rural Aairs who (as MAFF) grant
aided the studies. The following provided services to the West
Dorset District Council who have made information freely
available.
Marine Processes Dr R. NunnyAmbios Environmental
Consultants Ltd. Aerial Photogrammetric Surveys
Cartographic Services (Southampton). Borehole Geophysics
BEL Geophysical. Core drillingACS Drilling. GPS
SurveysMerrett Survey Partnership. Geophysical Sur-
veysStructural Testing Services. Ground Investi-
gationExploration Associates. Groundwater Data
LoggersHydrokit Instrumentation. Inclinometer Equip-
mentGeotechnical Instruments. Sea Bed SurveysPortland
Survey and Navigation Company, Shoreline Surveys. Wave
and Tide MonitoringH.R. Wallingford.
Many people and organizations have helped produce the
figures. In particular I wish to thank, David Shilston at W.S.
Atkins, Roma Beaumont of Kings College, the Cartographic
sta of the Department of Geography, University of Durham,
Dr R. Chandler, Alec Koh and N.J. Baker.
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Vote of Thanks
Professor P.G. Fookes, Consultant
Engineering Geologist, Winchester
There is a recent story that a party of amateur geologists from
the Worthing Geological Society on a summer outing were
walking along the beach at Charmouth, near Denyss home in
Dorset, when they came across what looked like a bearded old
sea captain, sitting in a deckchair, facing the cli. Upon
enquiry, they learnt that he was watching an existing landslide,
or rather waiting for a further landslide to happen, so that he
could observe. He explained that he had been waiting for many
years for this particular landslide to move and he wasnt going
to miss it: a sort of watching paint dry!
For me, this little story encapsulates Denys, the singular
field geomorphologist of unflagging dedication, exuberance,
knowledge and hope.
Denyss field strength, probably without peer, is in recog-
nizing the telltale signs hidden in the landscape that reveal the
secrets of geomorphological processes, particularly small cata-
strophic events. Landslips in particular have been his life work
but his knowledge of the workings of the landscape, through
the ravages of time, earthquakes, faults, wind, water and ice,
and his ability to visualise, map, record and interpret, make
him the field geomorphologists field geomorphologist. A lover
of landscape, a thinker.
Since his early excellent grounding at Kings, in the 1950s,
under the giant of that time, Professor Wooldridge (often a
little scathing about geologists whom he thought of as studiers
of sea bottoms), following on from the likes of Hutton and
Lyell, it was being more and more realized that landforms are
created by processes acting together. It is now seen that there
is a hierarchy of spatial and temporal scales and causality,
where small can be beautiful, and in time, from little things,
large landscapes can grow. The story of landscape evolution
developed by modern geomorphologists is now for engineering
geology a powerful, practical analytical tool, but perhaps little
recognized little understood and much underused.
Denyss tour de force was a constructive and forward-
looking review and a fascinating, most important case history,
illustrates his skill as a consultant, a teacher and an inspirer
most of us in the audience will have no problem in believing
the vagaries of the ground and the prediction of its behaviour
are far more dicult and in need of skilled care, than under-
standing or predicting the performance of a man-designed
structure. In this, geotechnical engineers need geologists, and
geologists need geomorphologists. Stephen J. Gould suggests
that there is a long tradition in the sciences of a pecking order
by status, from the hard and more experimental (e.g. physics
or chemistry) to the soft and more descriptive (e.g. natural
history). Some believe that geology resides in the middle of this
false continuum and as a science it has often tried to win
prestige by mimicking the theoretical and experimental pro-
cedures of sciences of so-called higher status, even to the
detriment of its own power of observational methods and
understanding of deep time. These concepts, probably born of
low self-esteem, are still common today, but I do not subscribe
ogy may even be considered a little lower in this pecking order.
In our own geotechnical world, I do not think that the
superior (or inferior) to careful field observation: all ap-
proaches are needed, and in Professor Denys Brunsden we
have a scientist of stature, an interweaver of pure and applied,
an observer of landforms and processes on all scales, who, with
a flash of perceptive genius on occasion brings swift resolution
to a practical problem. However, I do think that there is an
urgent need to develop a language equally understood by both
geotechnical engineers and engineering geomorphologists for
their mutual good.
It was in the late 60s and the 70s that Denys started to use
his field talents to assist engineering geology with a series of
before-their-time applied geomorphology maps of South
Wales, the Himalayas and the Middle East. These were for
me a revelation in observation and quantification of the
ground surface. I found them invaluable and have continued
to work with Deny and his excellent peers (whom he has
applauded in his lecture), as well as with the next generation
of gifted British applied geomorphologists inspired and
taught by Denys. He has done more: he was a co-founder of
Geomorphological Services, a brilliant, farsighted enterprise,
in the 70s and 80s, eventually decimated by the bean-
counters, but not until after it had established that geomor-
phology as an applied service had a relevant real-world part
to play. He was a co-founder and first President of the
International Association of Geomorphologists, which, I be-
lieve, is amongst the achievements of which he is most
proud. He is Chairman of the Dorset Coast Forum and
played a pivotal role in the recent World Heritage bid.
In short, the last four decades have been a most exciting
time in the growth of geomorphology. It has been particularly
exciting for us in that the development of applied geomorphol-
ogy has followed quickly in its wake. The earth is no longer
thought to be some 6000 years old (Shakespeare in As you like
it). The 500-year flood is a rare event on the human scale (only
a few will ever see one in anger), but commonplace on the geo-
logical scale. It is the ability of Denys and his colleagues, to
interpret ancient and modern landscapes, their history com-
posed of a few witnessed and countless unwitnessed events,
together with their past and present processes, that allows
analysis and prediction of their current performance, on a site
scale. In my view, it is this ability that helps us better evaluate
our geo-engineering world that has been the most valuable of
his many, many valuable contributions.
I look forward to reading the published paper. Meanwhile,
I ask you to support my vote of thanks, with acclaim, to Denys
for the lecture treat, and I should like to include in our acclaim
his ever supportive wife, Elizabeth.
Thank you.