Landslip is a significant but under-acknowledged risk to residential development and infrastructure in vulnerable localities. Senior geologist Warwick Willmott wrote an account Slope Stability and Its Constraints on Closer Settlement in the Foothills of the Toowoomba Range, Gatton Shire, Number 44 in the 1984 Record Series of the Geological Survey of Queensland.
“The prime cause of the landslides appears to be the removal of forest cover since European settlement, which has reduced mechanical support for the slopes, and allowed groundwater pressures to rise to critical levels.”
The report delineates 13 stability zones by relating known landslide occurrences to combinations of topographic, geological and groundwater conditions.
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