Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Geomorphology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph

Spatio-temporal changes in river bank mass failures in the Lockyer Valley,

Queensland, Australia
Chris Thompson a, b,, Jacky Croke b, James Grove c, Giri Khanal d
a

Centre for Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management (ICAM), Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia
Australian Rivers Institute, Grifth University, Nathan Campus, Queensland 4111, Australia
Department of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
d
Department of Environment and Resource Management, Land Centre, Woolloongabba, Queensland 4102, Australia
b
c

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 December 2012
Received in revised form 31 January 2013
Accepted 12 March 2013
Available online 20 March 2013
Keywords:
Bank erosion
Mass failures
Exltration
Wet ows
Multitemporal LiDAR

a b s t r a c t
Wet-ow river bank failure processes are poorly understood relative to the more commonly studied processes of
uvial entrainment and gravity-induced mass failures. Using high resolution topographic data (LiDAR) and near
coincident aerial photography, this study documents the downstream distribution of river bank mass failures
which occurred as a result of a catastrophic ood in the Lockyer Valley in January 2011. In addition, this distribution is compared with wet ow mass failure features from previous large oods. The downstream analysis of
these two temporal data sets indicated that they occur across a range of river lengths, catchment areas, bank
heights and angles and do not appear to be scale-dependent or spatially restricted to certain downstream
zones. The downstream trends of each bank failure distribution show limited spatial overlap with only 17% of
wet ows common to both distributions. The modication of these features during the catastrophic ood of
January 2011 also indicated that such features tend to form at some optimum shape and show limited evidence
of subsequent enlargement even when ow and energy conditions within the banks and channel were high.
Elevation changes indicate that such features show evidence for inlling during subsequent oods. The preservation of these features in the landscape for a period of at least 150 years suggests that the seepage processes
dominant in their initial formation appear to have limited role in their continuing enlargement over time. No evidence of gully extension or headwall retreat is evident. It is estimated that at least 12 inundation events would
be required to ll these failures based on the average net elevation change recorded for the 2011 event. Existing
conceptual models of downstream bank erosion process zones may need to consider a wider array of mass failure
processes to accommodate for wet ow failures.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Understanding the mechanisms and rates of bank erosion is
paramount to the successful management of aquatic ecosystems
and off-shore environments, especially as numerous studies now
point to bank erosion as the dominant contributor to issues of
water quality and river degradation (Grimshaw and Lewin, 1980;
Prosser et al., 2001; Simon et al., 2002). However, in spite of the
recognition of its importance, there remain surprisingly few studies
of downstream changes in bank erosion processes and rates within
individual basins to enable effective quantication of the timing
and spatial distribution of sediment delivery (Lawler et al., 1999).
At the basin scale most studies are derived from analysis of cartographic

Corresponding author at: Centre for Integrated Catchment Assessment and Management
(ICAM), Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia.
E-mail address: Christopher.Thompson@anu.edu.au (C. Thompson).
0169-555X/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2013.03.010

sources and aerial photographs (Lewin, 1977; Gilvear et al., 2000;

Winterbottom and Gilvear, 2000; Kemp, 2004).
The availability of high resolution topographic data provided by
Light-Detection And Ranging (LiDAR), combined with aerial photography, has opened up the possibility of more accurate mapping of bank
erosion volumes and processes (Bowen and Waltermire, 2002; Jones
et al., 2007; Marcus and Fonstad, 2008). Grove et al. (2013) used this
technology to classify bank forms along 100 km of the Lockyer Valley
southeast Queensland (SEQ) to estimate the relative contribution of
both uvial entrainment and mass failure processes during a catastrophic ood in 2011. This study highlighted that whilst the individual
processes of sub-aerial, uvial entrainment and mass failure bank erosion have been well-studied (Thorne, 1982; Lawler, 1992, 1993;
Abernethy and Rutherfurd, 1998; Couper and Maddock, 2001; Rinaldi
and Darby, 2007), wet ow failures are poorly understood within
existing conceptual models. In addition, there is limited understanding
of the effect of local, at-a-site properties on their formation and how the
form of these features changes in response to subsequent ood events
over time. As the dominant mechanism for their formation is ow seepage from near-saturated banks (Grove et al., 2013), existing theories

130

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

and conceptual models may be inappropriate in explaining their downstream distribution and the forces acting to change their form over time.
Existing concepts used to quantify uvial entrainment estimates
of bank erosion have focused primarily on principles of force and resistance, where force is commonly measured using some expression
of energy or shear stress and resistance is reected in variations to
bank material properties and vegetation. Mass failure processes are
more spatially discrete, and are believed to be triggered by many factors such as pore water pressure, matrix-suction (Simon et al., 2002;
Rinaldi et al., 2004) seepage forces (Rinaldi and Darby, 2007), antecedent soil moisture condition (Hooke, 1979) and the force of gravity
(Thorne, 1993). In general, mass failures are thought to occur as the
shear strength of the soil is exceeded by the weight of the overlying
material when the hydraulic conductivity (Ks) of the river sediment
limits drainage so that water table cannot lower at the same rate as
the river stage (Dapporto et al., 2003). The timing, and potential, of
failure have traditionally been quantied using the factor of safety
(Fs) (Parker et al., 2008). Cohesive riverbanks have low Ks and the
ability to reach greater heights than other sediments, and so it has
been assumed that mass failure processes will be effective only
when a bank reaches a critical height (Thorne, 1982; Lawler, 1995).
The application of these models to wet-ow failures has yet to be
fully investigated.
Conceptual understanding of riverbank erosion at the basin scale
(Lawler, 1992, 1995; Lawler et al., 1999) tends to support the existence
of a generalised trend of sub aerial processes dominating the headwater
reaches, uvial processes in mid-basin reaches (Graf, 1982; Lawler,
1995) and mass failure processes in the downstream reaches (Lawler
et al., 1999). These processes are, however, not mutually exclusive
and interactions occur between the different process types (Darby et
al., 2007; Rinaldi and Darby, 2007). The extent to which any of these
conceptual models applies to wet-ow mass failure processes is largely
untested in river systems.
This study seeks to advance our understanding of wet-ow mass
failure features by addressing three specic aims. Firstly, this paper
aims to compare the 2011 spatial distribution of mass failures as
reported in Grove et al. (2013) with the distribution of pre-existing
mass failures. Secondly, the paper will investigate the role of local,
at-a-site bank and hydraulic parameters in explaining the downstream
distribution of these features. Thirdly, this study will investigate temporal modication of these features by comparing net changes in bank
form and volume between the two time periods.
2. Study area
2.1. Regional setting
The Lockyer Valley lies inland from Brisbane and extends to the
Great Dividing Range which marks the catchment divide from the
MurrayDarling Basin (Fig. 1). The Lockyer catchment drains nearly
3000 km 2 of prime agricultural land in southeast Queensland
(SEQ). SEQ is a subtropical region with mean maximum monthly
temperatures ranging between 21 and 29 C. The total annual rainfall ranges between 900 and 1800 mm, with the majority falling during the warm summer season (October to February). The region is
characterised by seasonally variable patterns of oods and droughts
which have been linked to the inter-annual rainfall variations of the
El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Inter-decadal Pacic
Oscillation (IPO) (Kiem et al., 2003; Rustomji et al., 2009).
2.2. Lockyer Creek catchment
The upper reaches of Lockyer Creek, known as Murphy's Creek
ow east over Jurassic Marburg sandstones before becoming bedrock
conned within the older Helidon sandstone with a mean channel
bed slope of 0.006 m m 1. Downstream of the conned reaches,

channel gradient reduces to 0.0008 m m 1 as the river ows back

over the Marburg sandstones and discharges onto the unconned alluvial plain around Helidon, where the present low-ow channel is
inset within a large macrochannel (~ 150 m wide and 20 m deep)
containing within-channel benches. In the lower part of the catchment where valley oor width is extensive (213 km), channel planform alternates between low sinuosity reaches and tight meandering
bends which have incised into the Marburg sandstone. Some alluvial
cutoffs are preserved but there is little topographical evidence of recent lateral migration of the river in the form of remnant scroll bars
or extensive point-bar development. Levees are also notable features
with oodplain surfaces sloping steeply away from the present channel (Fig. 1D).
Early settlement commenced in the 1840s in the Lockyer Valley
with approximately half of the native vegetation in the region now
cleared, the majority of this occurring between 1840s1940s
(Galbraith, 2009). The clearing mainly focused on the lower half of
the valley across its broad alluvial plains whilst the steep upper catchment remained largely uncleared (Galbraith, 2009). The density and
preservation of riparian vegetation adjacent to the macrochannel
are variable with the majority of bank tops largely devoid of wooded
vegetation as cropping land extends to the channel boundary.
2.3. Flood history
The January 2011 event is ranked as the second highest ood in
the past 100 years, after 1974 (Bureau of Meteorology, 2011). Major
ood events have also been documented in the Brisbane River in
the 1840s, 1890s, 1974 and 2011 (Table 1; Babister and Retallick,
2011). Hydrological records are scarce during the 1800s, however
historical documents and local newspapers refer back to the great
ood of 1893 and the more recent ood of 1974 ood as the only
other major events prior to the 2011 ood. The ood in the 1840s is
likely to have coincided with rst settlement in the region and
would have encountered pre-European vegetation along the channel.
Riparian vegetation is likely to have been largely intact within the
macrochannel at the time of the 1893 oods.
3. Methods
This study is concerned with the spatial and temporal distributions
of riverbank mass failure features both as a result of the January 2011
ood and pre-existing oods. The primary data sources for the mapping
of these features were a combination of LiDAR and near-coincident
high-resolution aerial photography which were available for two time
periods; pre-ood (2010) and immediately after the January 2011
ood. Based on the combined extent of LiDAR coverage and post-ood
high resolution air photos, 71 km of stream length extending from
just above the township of Murphy's Creek to below Gatton (Fig. 1B,
C) was selected for analysis.
High-resolution DEMs of both time periods were constructed with
triangular irregular network (TINs) using Delaunay triangulation.
Error and uncertainty in both DEM surfaces were investigated and
accounted for using procedures outlined in Croke et al. (2013).
3.1. Mass failure identication
A polygon layer was created of mass failures by tracing around the
headwall on the 2011 aerial imagery, guided by the >35 slope layer
derived from the LiDAR DEM to dene the 2011 post-ood mass failures
(Fig. 2). The steep slope was used to aid the visual interpretation of
eroding surfaces where there was canopy cover, and the 35 threshold
chosen is coincident with values of eroding banks reported by
Dapporto et al. (2003). The delineation of polygons was undertaken at
a scale of 1:400, as this was considered the optimum level to avoid pixilation but maintain detail. During this mapping phase, detailed notes

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

131

B
A

Gatton

Brisbane

C Murphys Creek

Helidon
Gatton

Fig. 1. Lockyer Creek catchment in southeast Australia (inset), showing post-ood high resolution aerial photo coverage area and extents of 2010 and 2011 LiDAR coverage used to
derive DEMs. Lines A and B represent two cross sections from the mid Lockyer Creek.

were taken on failure form and process, notably the planform shape of
the failure extent and the morphology of the failure oor. The presence,
size, and position of failed blocks or resting material on the failure oor
were used to infer processes. As LiDAR does not penetrate water, a mask
was placed over the inner channel and these data points were excluded
from the analysis. The extent of erosion of the mass failure polygons
into the channel was often limited by the water mask layer, which
formed the lower boundary of the failure polygon.
The planform shape of the digitised polygon and the surface of
the failure oor were used to classify three main types of failures

based on the criteria summarised in Table 2 and as outlined in

Grove et al. (2013). Additional attributes such as bank height, angle
and oodplain width were also extracted from a cross-section which
passed through the polygon centroid to the opposite bank and oodplain. In addition a nearest neighbour (channel distance to next mass
failure), either upstream or downstream was extracted within ArcGIS.
This approach was also used to map the distribution and attributes
of the pre-existing mass failures from the pre-ood LiDAR DEM and
aerial imagery (Fig. 3A, B). Although the resolution of the features
was not as distinct as the post-ood features, the form of the failure

132

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

Table 1
Major oods measured on the Lower Brisbane River (Port Ofce Gauge) unadjusted for
river changes and dam construction.
Flood year

Flood height (AHD)

River changes affecting ood heights

1841
1844
1890

8.43
7.02
5.33

1893 5
February
19 February
1898
1974

8.35

None
None
River mouth sand bar removed in 1864 &
ongoing river dredging for navigation
commenced
Ongoing dredging

2011

4.27

8.09
5.02
5.45

Ongoing dredging
Ongoing dredging to 1940s
Flood mitigation works including river
widening commenced 1930s and
Somerset dam built in 1940s
Wivenhoe Dam built in 1980s

River heights are unadjusted for river changes.

Floods recorded in local newspapers impacting the Lockyer Valley.

headwall was clearly identiable and a similar approach of applying

a > 35 slope layer was used to guide the mapping. Pre-ood mass
failure length and width attributes were extracted whilst bank
height and angle were not extracted due to an absence of comparable resolution elevation data for the likely failure time. Further,
there is also the probability of some modication of form over time
since these features were rst formed. Attempts to separate the
pre-ood features into discrete time steps using analysis of traditional black and white air photographs proved problematic. Selected
time periods for this preliminary analysis included time periods covering 1958, 1971 and 1974. Aerial photographs were scanned and
orthorectied to facilitate comparison between these data sources
and the pre-ood and post-ood LiDAR mapped features. As illustrated in a representative example of the 1974 air photo coverage
for a section of the river which experienced signicant mass failure
occurrences in 2011 (Fig. 3C), resolution proved too coarse to condently interpret the existence of mass failures within this pre-ood
time period and the data set remained temporally lumped into a
pre-ood distribution.
3.2. Distribution of failures within hydraulically dened geomorphic features
To determine where these features were forming, a geomorphic
classication of within-channel and oodplain features developed
using the LiDAR-derived DEM and a one dimensional (1-D) step backwater model HEC-RAS was overlaid on the mass failure shape le. A
combination of discharge modelling and slope thresholds was used
to identify: (1) inner channel bed and bars; (2) inner channel
banks; (3) within-channel benches; (4) macrochannel banks; and
(5) inundated oodplain based on hydraulic modelling and terrain
slope thresholds (Table 3) (Croke et al., 2013).
3.3. Estimates of mass failure volume
Estimates of mass failure length, width and area for each time
period (pre- and post-ood) were extracted from each digitised
mass failure polygon. Net volumetric change between mass failure
features from the two time periods was approximated using a simple integration scheme, multiplying the calculated elevation change
(a depth measurement in m) from the DoD by surface area of each
cell (1 m 2).

4. Results
4.1. 2011 and pre-existing mass failures
4.1.1. January 2011 mass failures
A total of 437 mass failures, with an average area of 676 m 2
(Table 4), were identied and digitised throughout the study area
as a result of the 2011 ood. The failures could be attributed directly
to the ood as they manifested as erosion on the DoD. It was not possible to attribute a particular failure mechanism for 15 of these due to
problems of shading, shadows, and image resolution. Based on their
morphological attributes, 422 failures were classied as wet ow
mass failures. Three main types were recognized: (1) Piping failures
(cf Jones, 2010) (n = 168), with a concentration of exltrating ow
in one location; (2) coalesced piping failures (n = 154), where either
several failures had merged, or the landward migration from seepage
had caused bifurcation of the failure (Dunne, 1980; Schumm et al.,
1995); and (3) sapping failures (n = 100) (cf. Hagerty, 1991)
where the seepage ow is over a more extensive area possibly due
to more permeable sand lens or conning impermeable clay layer
(Fox et al., 2006).
The area occupied by each of the hydraulically dened geomorphic features in the study area shows that 53% of mass failure area occurs over the macrochannel banks, 33% on benches, and 10% across
the inner channel banks, and 3% from oodplain surfaces (Table 5).
The total area covered by 2011 ood mass failures within the study
area is 295,350 m 2 whilst a net volume of 695,214 m 3 of material
was eroded.
4.1.2. Pre-ood mass failures
A total of 234 mass failures with an average area of 421 m 2 were
identied and digitised from pre-ood high resolution LiDAR DEM
(Table 4). The mass failures that were evident in the earlier imagery
had the dimensions and morphology of single piping failures, with a
mean length: width ratio of 1.5 (0.4), and not sapping failures.
An analysis of the spatial distribution of pre-existing mass failure
distribution shows that 60% of their area occurs over the macrochannel
banks, 21% on benches, 11% across the inner channel banks and 7% from
oodplains (Table 5). This distribution across hydraulically dened
geomorphic classes closely resembles the 2011 distribution. The
total area covered by pre-existing mass failures within the study
area is 98,508 m 2, almost a third of the area compared to the recent
mass failures.
4.2. Spatial trends in post- and pre-ood mass failures
Post-ood mass failures rst occurred around 7 km downstream
of the Spring Bluff GS at a catchment area of 34 km 2. The mass failures remained sparse until 38 km downstream (446 km 2) at which
point the failure frequency dramatically increased to the downstream extent of the air imagery (Fig. 1C). A cumulative downstream
distribution of mass failure area (Fig. 4) illustrates a stepped prole
with a hiatus in mass failures occurring between 3040 km and
5062 km, and the majority occurring below 62 km (1527 km 2). A
Poisson distribution represents the distances between failures with
median distances of 45 and 44 m for the left and right banks respectively (Fig. 5; Table 6). There was no signicant difference in distances between the two riverbanks.
Similar to the post-2011 distribution, pre-existing mass failures
occurred throughout most of the catchment, starting at 7 km downstream (Fig. 6), with a cluster of failures occurring around 30 km

Fig. 2. An example of river bank mass failures from the January 2011 ood shown with (A) high resolution air photo, (B) hillshade on LiDAR DEM and (C) air photo with overlay of
35 slope grid.

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

133

134

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

Table 2
Riverbank mass failure erosion types and their signature features on LiDAR and aerial imagery.
Mass failure type LiDAR last return identication features
Rotational
failure

Arcuate vertical headwall.

Failed blocks sloping away from the channel.

Slab failure

Cantilever
failure

Wet ow

Aerial imagery identication features

Source

Varnes (1978), Thorne (1982)

Sharp break in vegetation at headwall.
Exposed sediment at headwall.
Large failure block with surface vegetation sloping away
from the channel.
Failed blocks resting at bank toe, or resting on scarp wall. Thorne (1982),
Linear steep headwall.
Dapporto et al. (2003)
High likelihood of a steep bank surface in preceding imagery. The failed block would have a relatively narrow
vegetated surface compared to its height.
Blocks resting at the bank basal area.
The height of the block would be similar to the scarp
wall height.
Thorne and Tovey (1981)
Failed blocks resting at bank toe.
Linear steep headwall.
High likelihood of a steep bank surface in preceding imagery. Failures could be as an elongated beam or block that has
been undercut and subsequently fallen either vertically,
Blocks resting at bank basal area smaller than
or toppled forward. The relative position of the vegetated
the scarp wall height.
surface would indicate the failure direction.
Wet sand, silt ow Varnes (1978)
No obvious coherent blocks in the failure.
Arcuate scarp wall.
Flow slide Hutchinson (1988)
A failure oor with a smooth surface, possibly incised by ow. Fluidised failed material would be expected to leave a
Sand, silt ow slide
failure oor with ow
Concave failure surface.
Hungr et al. (2001)
type features, possibly sinuous.
Possible narrow neck width compared to scarp
wall diameter.

and increased in frequency from 42 km downstream. Eighty ve

percent of the identied pre-ood mass failures occurred within
200 m of each other with the most isolated failure neighbour
being 2.4 km distant. A hiatus occurred between 54 and 62 km similar to the gap in the recent mass failure distribution. A Poisson distribution represents the nearest neighbour distances with median
distances of 50 and 30 m for the left and right banks respectively
(Fig. 7; Table 5). There was no signicant difference in nearest
neighbour distance between both banks.

4.3. Temporal changes in patterns of mass failures

In spite of similar spatial distributions downstream, further analyses revealed that only 17% of mass failures overlapped between the
two time periods (Table 4). Within these 75 coincident failures, 72%
of the new failures had half or greater of their area within a
pre-existing failure, and less than 8% were completely located within a
pre-existing failure. On the other hand, of the intersecting pre-existing
failures, 19% were completely engulfed by the new 2011 mass failures.
In summary, of the total area occupied by mass failures (385,000 m2),
only 2.3% is common to both pre-existing and 2011 mass failure
distributions.

4.3.1. Modication of existing failures during the 2011 event

Changes to the form of the existing mass failure distribution during
the 2011 ood event were calculated from the DoD. Overall, 137
pre-existing failures experienced net deposition whilst 97 had net erosion (Fig. 8). The average amount of elevation change in the existing
failures is +0.08 m and only 2 of the 234 existing failures experienced
no erosion after the 2011 ood event. Modications of the pre-existing
mass failures consisted of three main process categories: (1) erosion at
the scarp of the failure; (2) erosion at the toe of failure; and (3) erosion
of the headland(s) outside of the failure. Scarp erosion, which may be
through both uvial entrainment and mass failure from seepage, was
evident at 32% of the failures. Toe erosion from uvial entrainment
was found at 39% of the sites, whilst headland erosion was found at
35% of the sites. Both net deposition and net erosion were evident in
all of these categories and at 95% of the failures overall. Vegetation,
which was visible after either erosion or deposition in the ood, was
signicant at 53% of the sites. Where vegetation was able to survive erosion or deposition during the ood then the scarp erosion was minimized from 32% to 12% and toe erosion from 39% to 21%. Only 12% of

the pre-existing failures had both signicant vegetation and scarp

erosion.
The erosion in and around the existing mass failures appeared to
exhibit the features of uvial entrainment. There were no large (in
relation to the failure size) discrete blocks on the failure oor, and
the DoD only showed change to a depth of 12 m around the scarp
face.
To investigate the effect of failure morphology on the form resistance, ow velocity and erosion or deposition, the planform area of
the failure was correlated with the net DoD change of the failure.
Pre-existing failures that touched, or were contained by, 2011 failures
were excluded. The remaining 168 failures had a correlation coefcient
(R2 = 0.40; n = 168) between area and net DoD change. If only the
failures that had net deposition are used to examine the relationship between planform area and deposition, the R 2 value increases to 0.70
(n = 114). The trend of increasing deposition with failure area appears
to weaken with the larger failures, >2000 m2, and if these were excluded from the correlation, the R 2 value rose to 0.78 (n = 108). This relationship did not appear to hold for the average elevation change in the
failure, with the 114 depositing sites only giving an R2 value of 0.15.
So although the deposition increases as the failure size increases up to
2000 m2, the amount of deposition is not proportional to the failure
size.

4.4. Spatial distribution of mass failure site characteristics

The mean bank height on which mass failures occurred was 10.9 m,
though ranged from as low as 4 m in the upper alluvial reaches to 19 m
in the mid Lockyer Valley (Table 7). Limited mass failures occurred on
banks over 15 m because banks of this height were restricted to a
short reach at 6070 km downstream. Bank height shows a weak positive correlation against distance downstream (R2 = 0.31), however
at the reach-scale bank height shows trends of both increasing and decreasing height with distance downstream (Fig. 9A). Bank slope showed
no correlation against distance downstream (R2 = 0.03; Fig. 9B). Contributing oodplain width increases exponentially downstream with a
notable step at ~70 km marking a widening of the valley oor downstream of Gatton (Fig. 9C).
Unit stream power (W m 2) showed a weak negative correlation
with distance downstream (R 2 = 0.06). In part, this weak trend is
due to a number of conned zones giving rise to peaks in unit stream
power (Fig. 9D). A peak in unit stream power in the upper conned
reaches of Murphy's Creek occurs at approximately 25 km

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

135

Fig. 3. Images from same location in Fig. 2 with (A) air photo from 2009, (B) hillshade on 2010 LiDAR DEM showing mass failure scars and (C) a lower resolution 1971 air photo of
same reach.

136

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

Table 3
Discharge and terrain slope thresholds used to distinguish geomorphic classes.
Geo-class

Modelled discharge

Terrain slope

Inner-channel bed and bars

Inner-channel bank
Bench
Macro-channel bank
Floodplain/terrace

Q2.33
Q2.33
>Q2.33 and Qbf
>Q2.33 and Qbf
>Qbf

10
>10
14
>14
14

Table 5
Areal composition of geomorphic classes within the study area and the proportional
area occupied by the mass failures.
Geomorphic
class

Area
(ha)

Proportion Area of pre-existing Area of 2011 mass

(%)
mass failure (%)
failure (%)

Inner channel
102
1.3
bed and bars
Inner channel bank
106
1.4
Bench
206
2.7
Macrochannel bank
270
2.7
Floodplain
6915 91.0

11
21
59
7

10
33
53
3

downstream (235 km 2), and another increase mid-valley at approximately 50 km downstream.

4.5. Comparison between mass failure and non-mass failure site
characteristics
Bank height showed a signicant difference (p b 0.001) between
the mass failure and non-mass failure sites (Table 8). However,
non-mass failure locations are heavily biased by the limited number
of failures in the upper reaches of Murphy's Creek (Fig. 10A).
Re-analysis of bank height data excluding the upper 20 km, which
contained relatively few mass failures, resulted in no statistical difference between mass failure locations and non-mass failure locations
with mean bank heights of 11.1 m for both.
The unit stream power data showed a statistically signicant
result between the two populations based on a non-parametric
Wilcoxon test (p b 0.001) and an ANOVA on Log10 transformed data
(Table 8). The inclusion of non-mass failure sites in the higher energy
reaches of Murphy's creek, however, is also likely to have biased this
distribution, but as illustrated in Fig. 10B, the non-mass failure sites
display higher variation in unit stream power for the length of the
study area. Owing to the widespread distribution of the 437 mass failures in 2011, it proved problematic to accurately compare sites which
displayed no mass failures but nonetheless, ranges of variables are almost identical for the two data sets.
5. Discussion
5.1. Comparisons of failure form over time
This study presents unique, spatially comprehensive data on downstream trends in mass failure distributions as a result of a catastrophic
ood in January 2011 and those pre-existing failures in the Lockyer
Valley SEQ. The availability of high resolution LiDAR-derived DEMs
and aerial photography enabled accurate mapping of these features
from both the post-ood and pre-ood data sets. The features described
in this study have been related primarily to wet ow processes which
form as liqueed or saturated material that is removed from the bank
face due to exltration and changes in pore water pressure when the
ood waters remain high (Grove et al., 2013). These were subsequently classied as piping and sapping failures in the 2011 distribution. Sapping failures had a more even backwall than piping
failures and appeared reasonably homogeneous in planform, with
less scalloping. The failure oor in sapping failures was often

Table 4
Number and area of digitised polygons in the study area representing pre-existing and
2011 mass failures, and number and area of intersecting polygons between the time
periods.

Pre-existing
2011
Overlapping MFs

Number of MF

Total area (m2)

Average area (m2)

234
437
75

98,508
295,350
9040

421
676
120

stepped displaying multiple levelled/planar failure oors. Wet

ows caused by piping were the most consistent process throughout the catchment in terms of the overall contribution of sediment
(Grove et al., 2013). Analysis of the pre-ood imagery conrms that
similar failures occurred during past oods as the accurate shape of
the headwall was clearly preserved, but less detail could be provided on their original form. Changes in the length/width ratios and
size of the features would indicate that sapping failures are less
dominant than identied in the post-ood data set. This could indicate the general absence of this particular process or some subsequent change in the form of these features over time.
5.2. Controls on spatial trends in mass failure distribution
The downstream distributions of both pre- and post-ood failures
illustrate that they occur across a wide range of river lengths, catchment areas and bank heights. The presence of such features in the
upper reaches just 7 km downstream in both distributions suggests
that such processes are not scale-dependent. Unlike the more widely
reported forms of mass failures due to rotational and planar processes
of bank collapse, wet ow failures occur fairly ubiquitously downstream, albeit with some areas displaying a general absence of failures. As a result, existing models for bank erosion process domains
which tend to conceptualise mass failures as occurring in the lower
reaches of valleys may not be appropriate for such features. Such
models are based largely on the assumption that as channel depth/
bank size increases downstream, a zone in which bank height exceeds
some critical value leads to mass failure development downstream.
The bivariate plots of local at-a-site controls and distance downstream in this study illustrate some of the complexities of this generalised interpretation in settings where such variables do not increase
linearly with distance downstream. For example, bank height shows a
linear trend of increasing for the rst 25 km of river length but then
shows a notable reduction, followed by several such steps downstream. In this study, the presence of large macrochannels mid valley
in the Lockyer adds considerable complexity to any linear pattern of
increasing channel depth and bank size downstream. In addition, if
bank material properties or other channel geometry variables were
signicant factors in controlling the basin-scale distribution, existing
mass failures may be expected to enlarge over time. Analysis conrmed that only 17% of post 2011 ood mass failures showed some
correlation to an existing feature indicating that the majority of
2011 failures occurred in a unique location. In addition, a comparison
of the changes in the form of pre-existing mass failures during the
2011 event would also lend support to the limited role of local,
at-a-site factors. There appears to have been limited modication of
the form of these features during the 2011 ood event. They did not
appear to contribute much sediment in the 2011 ood and were instead operating primarily as sediment sinks. The correlation between
failure planform area and the amount of deposition showed a signicant positive relationship between the existing failure size and the
net elevation change on the DoD, up to a threshold area of 2000 m 2.
This could indicate that the larger failures have a limited ability to
create a dead water zone and perhaps do not form any ow

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

137

100

16000

90
80

Mass failure area (m2)

14000

70

12000

60
10000
50
8000
40
6000

30

4000

20

2000

10

Cumulative mass failure area (%)

18000

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Distance downstream (km)

Fig. 4. Longitudinal distribution of mass failures plotted against failure area from the January 2011 catastrophic ood.

2.5
Left bank

Nearest neighbour (km)

Right bank
2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Distance downstream (km)

Fig. 5. Longitudinal distribution of mass failures following the January 2011 catastrophic ood. Distance downstream commences from the Spring Bluff GS which has a contributing
area of 18 km2.

separation, which would increase average velocity and decrease deposition. As the basic mechanism for the formation of these features
is seepage from the oodplain face, it remains unclear why this process does not continue to enlarge an existing mass failure or form a
gully in the headward extent of the failure wall. No gullies were
mapped adjacent to any pre-existing failure and none was formed
as a result of the 2011 ood. This would tend to add support to the
relatively limited role of local factors such as bank height or material
properties in explaining their distribution.

5.3. Residence time of mass failure features

The preservation of mass failure features from past ood events is
an interesting conclusion emerging from this study. Comparison between the pre- and post-ood distributions would suggest that
mass failures from different oods tend to have limited spatial overlap and the overall form of the mass failure is retained in the landscape over time. The precise role of past historical oods in the
pre-ood mass failure distribution could not be fully elucidated, but
it seems likely that each of the major oods outlined in Section 2.3
contributed to the formation of these features, and as such they

have been preserved for at least 150 years. As the dominant process
occurring within an existing mass failure is now depositional, it
seems likely that such features will change their planform largely
through inlling and vertical accretion. This may explain the general
absence of sapping failures in the pre-ood distribution, as changes
in the length/width ratio may either reect the general absence of
this form in the initial distribution or subsequent modication of

Table 6
Nearest neighbour distributions on left and right banks for pre-existing and 2011 ood
mass failures.
Year

Bank

Mean SD
(km)

Skewness

Median
(km)

Min
(km)

Max
(km)

Pre-existing

Left
Right
Left
Right
Left
Right

0.15
0.15
0.10
0.14
98
144

3.6
5.2
7.1
4.9
7.1
4.9

0.05
0.03
0.045
0.044
0.044
0.044

0
0
0
0
0
0

1.8
3.2
2.1
2.4
2.1
2.4

2011
Comparison

0.26
0.36
0.22
0.31
226
315

No signicant difference in nearest neighbour distributions between year and bank

(p b 0.05) based on non-parametric test of medians and KruskalWallis test.

138

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

6000

100

Mass failure area (m2)

80
70

4000

60
3000

50
40

2000

30
20

1000

Cumulative mass failure area (%)

90
5000

10
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Distance down stream (km)

Fig. 6. Longitudinal distribution of mass failures plotted against failure area for pre-existing features.

2.5
Left bank

Nearest neighbour (km)

Right bank
2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Distance downstream (km)

Fig. 7. Longitudinal distribution of pre-existing mass failures.

40000
2011 flood

35000

pre-existing

Mass failure volume (m3)

30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
-5000
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Distance down stream (km)

Fig. 8. Change in sediment volume derived from 2010 to 2011 DoD. Positive values show sediment loss, negative values indicate in lling of mass failure areas.

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

139

Table 7
Characteristics of mass failures from January 2011 ood and associated channel attributes.
Variable

Mean

Std. dev.

Median

Skewness

Min.

Max.

Length (m)
Width (m)
Length/width
Area (m2)
Volume (m3)
Bank height (m)
Bank slope (%)
Contributing oodplain width (m)
Unit stream power (W m2)

46
16
2.5
676
1592
10.9
34
772
189

65
11
1.9
1360
3770
3
13
810
227

24
13
1.9
247
384
11
32
505
130

5.0
2.9
2.7
4.8
4.6
0.05
0.02
1.8
4.8

5
3
1
10
2
4
5
10
1

757
105
16.8
12,735
28,129
19
84
3954
2432

the failure form through depositional processes. It is estimated that at

least 12 inundation events would be required to ll these failures
based on the average net elevation change for the 168 failures in
2010 that did not touch the 2011 failures (0.13 m of deposition), assuming a constant rate of deposition in each event. In reality the
existing failures appeared to experience erosion at the toe or scarp
in 70% of the failures so that the failure margins would be more modied in the rst few events, which combined with deposition would
result in the smoothing of failure slopes. The degree of modication
initially would depend on time since the last event, controlling the
establishment of vegetation.
5.4. Mass failures and the magnitude of ood events
Whist the form of the pre-existing mass failures showed limited
change during the 2011 event, interestingly, the frequency of
post-ood mass failures is signicantly higher than the pre-ood distribution for a longer time period. The 2011 event saw an almost doubling of mass failure features. This cannot be explained by ood
magnitude alone as the pre-ood time period also includes extreme
events which are reportedly of greater magnitude than the recent
2011 ood (Bureau of Meteorology, 2011). The 2011 event, for example, is ranked as the second highest ood event in the last 100 years,
but as outlined in Section 2.3, historical accounts also reveal the signicance of earlier events such as 1840 and 1893 which based on

Bank slope (m/m)

Bank height (m)

20

stage height data on adjacent rivers such as the Brisbane, were of

greater magnitude than both 1974 and 2011. The increase in the frequency of the mass failures in the 2011 distribution, therefore, cannot
be explained by ood magnitude alone. However several aspects
of the 2011 ood are worth noting as they may have contributed
to this notable increase in the downstream reaches. The 2011
ood event occurred immediately following a very wet summer in
Queensland when the catchment and antecedent soil materials
were close to saturation even prior to the event (Bureau of
Meteorology, 2011; Jordan, 2011). The dominant source of rainfall occurred in the upper catchment close to the headwaters near Murphy's
Creek, however due to the catchment morphology, the major tributary inputs on the southern margins of the catchment only switched
on in the days following the major ood peak on January 10th. As
such, a double-peak was observed in the hydrograph at the lower
end of the system, which although of lower magnitude than upstream, would have contributed to more dynamic ow conditions
and pore-water pressure changes as the hydrograph adjusted
throughout both smaller events. The timing of the arrival of the rst
ood peak from the Lockyer is also known to have coincided with
the ood peak arrival down the mid-Brisbane such that ood waters
from the Lockyer were blocked at the tributary junction, increasing
the inundation time on the oodplains in the lower reaches. The effect
of bank inundation durations also increasing with ood-hydrograph
base-times in a downstream direction has been noted in previous

A
15
10
5
0

1.0

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0

20

40

60

80

20

Flood power (W m-2)

Contributing floodplain
width (m)

5,000

4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
0

20

40

60

Distance downstream (km)

40

60

80

Distance downstream (km)

Distance downstream (km)

80

3,000

2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
0

20

40

60

Distance downstream (km)

Fig. 9. A comparison of 2011 mass failure characteristics and associated channel and hydraulic variables.

80

140

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

Table 8
Comparison channel and hydraulic attributes between mass failure locations and
non-mass failure locations.
Attribute
Bank slope (m/m)
Bank height (m)
Unit stream power
(W m2)

MF
No MF
MF
No MF
MF
No MF

Test

Mean

Signicant difference
(p > 0.01)

ANOVA

0.34
0.35
10.9
8.9
189
775

ANOVA
ANOVA on
Log10(x) and
Wilcoxon test

Y
Y

studies of mass failure distributions downstream (Lawler et al.,

1999). Previous research also noted the existence of time-lags involved in river banks reaching moisture-driven critical stability conditions and as a result, many traditional mass failures have been
observed to occur on the recessional limbs of, or well after, storm
or seasonal hydrographs (Lawler et al., 1999). The general absence
of material on the oor of the failures post 2011 would also indicate
that such features occurred on the recessional limb, but when discharges remained high enough to transport much of the bank material. Whilst this study cannot elucidate the precise role any of these
meteorological factors would have played in explaining the increased frequency of failures in the 2011 ood, it seems probable
that the above factors would have had a cumulative effect and that
bank erosion rates even in wet ow processes are likely to have occurred episodically both prior to, during, and immediately after, the
ood peak.

20

Bank height (m)

Non MF

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2

Wet ow failures occur across a range of river lengths, catchment

areas, bank heights and angles and do not appear to be scaledependent or spatially restricted to certain downstream zones.
The downstream trends of each bank failure distribution show limited spatial overlap.
Conceptual models of downstream process zones may need to consider a wider array of mass failure processes to accommodate for the alternative forms of bank erosion processes such as those reported here.
The modication of these features during a catastrophic ood also indicated that such features tend to form at some optimum shape and
show limited evidence for subsequent enlargement even when ow
and energy conditions within the banks and channel were high.
Such features show evidence for inlling through deposition during
subsequent oods and their identication over time diminishes, although the sharp accurate form of the headwall remains obvious.
It seems clear that such features are an important mechanism for
internal adjustments in channel width during extreme ood events
in the Lockyer Valley. It is also apparent that the increasing availability of high-resolution imagery and topographic data sources will continue to improve our ability to understand the spatial and temporal
distributions of bank failures and provide valuable input to future
bank erosion prediction models.

This project was supported by the Queensland's Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts (DSITIA) as part
of the Flood Recovery Project 2011 and an Australian Research Council
Linkage Award (LP120200093). Fiona Watson (DSITIA Remote Sensing)
provided valuable advice on LiDAR mapping of these features. Phil
Blosch (DSITIA Chemistry Centre) provided access to a programme in
R to calculate channel attributes from LiDAR cross-sections.
References

0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Distance downstream (km)

Unit stream power (W m-2)

This study documents the downstream distribution of mass failures both as a result of a catastrophic ood which occurred in the
Lockyer Valley in January 2011 and those features which formed during previous large oods. The features were classied as wet ows
based on some important diagnostics of failure form and processes
and have retained a characteristic morphological shape over time.
These failures are different to the more widely reported gravity affected bank collapses. The downstream analysis of these two temporal distributions revealed the following major conclusions:

Acknowledgements

MF

18

6. Conclusions

5,000

4,500

MF
Non MF

4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Distance downstream (km)

Fig. 10. A comparison of (A) bank height and (B) unit stream power between 2011
mass failure sites and sites of no mass failure occurrence.

Abernethy, B., Rutherfurd, I.D., 1998. Where along a river's length will vegetation most
effectively stabilise stream banks. Geomorphology 23, 5575.
Babister, M., Retallick, M., 2011. Brisbane River 2011 Flood Event Flood Frequency
Analysis. Final Report. WMA water. Submission to Queensland Flood Commission
of Inquiry.
Bowen, Z.H., Waltermire, R.G., 2002. Evaluation of Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)
for measuring river corridor topography. Journal of the American Water Resources
Association 38, 3341.
Bureau of Meteorology, 2011. Provision of preliminary meteorological and hydrological
information: background brieng for the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry.
Submission to Commission of Inquiry.
Couper, P.R., Maddock, I.P., 2001. Subaerial river bank erosion processes and their interaction with other bank erosion mechanisms on the River Arrow, Warwickshire,
UK. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 26, 631646.
Croke, J., Todd, P., Thompson, C.J., Watson, F., Denham, R., Khanal, G., 2013. The use of
multi-temporal LiDAR to assess basin-scale erosion and deposition following the
catastrophic January 2011 Lockyer Flood, SE Queensland, Australia. Geomorphology.
184, 11126.
Dapporto, S., Rinaldi, M., Casagli, N., Vannocci, P., 2003. Mechanisms of riverbank
failure along the Arno River, central Italy. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
28, 13031323. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/esp.550.
Darby, S.E., Rinaldi, M., Dapporto, S., 2007. Coupled simulations of uvial erosion and
mass wasting for cohesive river banks. Journal of Geophysical Research 112,
F03022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006JF000722.

C. Thompson et al. / Geomorphology 191 (2013) 129141

Dunne, T., 1980. Formation and controls of channel networks. Progress in Physical
Geography 4, 211239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/030913338000400204.
Fox, G.A., Wilson, G.V., Periketi, R.K., Cullum, R.F., 2006. Sediment transport model for
seepage erosion of streambank sediment. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering 11,
603611.
Galbraith, R., 2009. Living in the landscape: the Lockyer Valley. A guide to property
and landscape management. South East Queensland Catchments Limited, Brisbane,
p. 115.
Gilvear, D., Winterbottom, S., Sichingabula, H., 2000. Character of channel planform
change and meander development: Luangwa River, Zambia. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 25, 421436.
Graf, W.L., 1982. Spatial variations of uvial processes in semi-arid lands. In: Thorn, C.R.
(Ed.), Space and Time in Geomorphology. Allen and Unwin, Boston, pp. 193217.
Grimshaw, D.L., Lewin, J., 1980. Source identication of suspended solids. Journal of
Hydrology 42, 151162.
Grove, J.F., Croke, J.C., Thompson, C.J., 2013. Quantifying different riverbank erosion
processes during an extreme ood event. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/Fesp.3386.
Hagerty, D.J., 1991. Piping/sapping erosion. I: basic considerations. Journal of Hydraulic
Engineering 117, 9911008.
Hooke, J.M., 1979. An analysis of the processes of river bank erosion. Journal of Hydrology 42, 3962.
Hungr, O., Evans, S.G., Bovis, M.J., Hutchinson, J.N., 2001. A review of the classication of
landslides of the ow type. Environmental and Engineering Geoscience 7, 221238.
Hutchinson, J.N., 1988. General report: morphological and geotechnical parameters
of landslides in relation to geology and hydrogeology. In: Bonnard, C. (Ed.),
Proceedings, Fifth International Symposium on Landslides. Balkema,
Rotterdam, pp. 326.
Jones, J.A.A., 2010. Soil piping and catchment response. Hydrological Processes 24,
15481566. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hyp.7634.
Jones, A.F., Brewer, P.A., Johnstone, A., Macklin, M.G., 2007. High resolution interpretive
geomorphological mapping of river valley environments using airborne LiDAR
data. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 32, 15741592.
Jordan, P.W., 2011. Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley ash ood events of 10 and 11
January 2011. Hydrological Advice to Commission of Inquiry Regarding 2010/11
Queensland Floods.Sinclair Knight Merz, Brisbane (11 April 2011).
Kemp, J., 2004. Flood channel morphology of a quiet river, the Lachlan downstream
from Cowra, southeastern Australia. Geomorphology 60, 171190. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.geomorph.2003.07.007.
Kiem, A.S., Franks, S.W., Kuczera, G., 2003. Multi-decadal variability of ood risk. Geophysical Research Letters 30, 1035.
Lawler, D.M., 1992. Process dominance in bank erosion systems. In: Carling, P., Petts,
G.E. (Eds.), Lowland Floodplain Rivers: Geomorphological Perspectives. Wiley,
Chichester, UK, pp. 117143.

141

Lawler, D.M., 1993. The measurement of river bank erosion and lateral channel change:
a review. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 18, 777821.
Lawler, D.M., 1995. The impact of scale on the processes of channel side sediment supply:
a conceptual model. In: Ostercamp, W.R. (Ed.), Effects of Scale on the Interpretation
and Management of Sediment and Water Quality: International Association of
Hydrological Scientists Publication, 226, pp. 175185.
Lawler, D.M., Grove, J.R., Couperthwaite, J.S., Leeks, G.J.L., 1999. Downstream change in
river bank erosion rates in the SwaleOuse system, northern England. Hydrological
Processes 13, 977992.
Lewin, J., 1977. Channel pattern changes. In: Gregory, K.J. (Ed.), River Channel Changes.
Wiley, Chichester, UK, pp. 167184.
Marcus, W.A., Fonstad, M.A., 2008. Optical remote mapping of rivers at sub meter resolutions and watershed extents. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 33, 424.
Parker, C., Simon, A., Thorne, C.R., 2008. The effects of variability in bank properties on
riverbank stability: Godwin Creek, Mississippi. Geomorphology 101, 533543.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2008.02.007.
Prosser, I.P., Rutherfurd, I.D., Olley, J.M., Young, W.J., Wallbrink, P.J., Moran, C.J., 2001.
Large-scale patterns of erosion and sediment transport in river networks, with examples from Australia. Marine and Freshwater Research 52, 8199.
Rinaldi, M., Darby, S.E., 2007. Modelling river-bank-erosion processes and mass failure
mechanisms: progress towards fully coupled simulations. In: Habersack, H., Piegay,
H., Rinaldi, M. (Eds.), Series Developments in Earth Surface Processes, 11. Elsevier,
pp. 213239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0928-2025(07)11126-3.
Rinaldi, M., Casagli, N., Dapporto, S., Gargini, A., 2004. Monitoring and modelling of
pore water pressure changes and riverbank stability during ow events. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 29, 237254. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/esp.1042.
Rustomji, P., Bennett, N., Chiew, F., 2009. Flood variability east of Australia's Great
Dividing Range. Journal of Hydrology 374, 196208.
Schumm, S.A., Boyd, K.F., Wolff, C.G., Spitz, W.J., 1995. A ground-water sapping landscape in the Florida Panhandle. Geomorphology 12, 281297.
Simon, A., Thomas, R.E., Curini, A., Shields Jr., D.F., 2002. Case study: channel stability of
the Missouri River, Eastern Montana. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 128, 880890.
Thorne, C.R., 1982. Processes and mechanisms of river bank erosion. In: Hey, R.D., Bathurst,
J.C., Thorne, C.R. (Eds.), Gravel Bed Rivers. Wiley, Chichester, UK, pp. 227259.
Thorne, C.R., 1993. Guidelines for the use of stream reconnaissance record sheets in the
eld. Contract Report HL-93-2.US Army Corps of Engineers, Washington DC, USA.
Thorne, C.R., Tovey, N.K., 1981. Stability of composite river banks. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 6, 469484.
Varnes, D.J., 1978. Slope movement types and processes. In: Schuster, R.L., Krizek, R.J.
(Eds.), LandslidesAnalysis and control. : Transportation Research Board, Special
Report, 176. National Research Council, Washington, D.C., pp. 1133.
Winterbottom, S.J., Gilvear, D.J., 2000. A GIS-based approach to mapping probabilities
of river bank erosion: regulated River Tummel, Scotland. Regulated Rivers:
Research & Management 16, 127140.