The terrain & geology around Baw Baw Shire is particularly prone to landslips and this became all the more apparent during the flooding in February 2011 which resulted in nu-merous landslips and road closures within councils road network.

EarthTEC was awarded 8 sites on the Yarragon-Leongatha Road, some of which were considered to be the most critical (Assessed Risk Ratings ARL1 or ARL 2) & challenging sites includ-ing Site No. 6 pictured above which comprised a 90m long 7m deep land-slip.

The solutions adopted included soil nailing and an innovative top-down construction process incorporating a weldmesh gabion type facing which in conjunction with the soil nails provided temporary stability to the road for-mation during construction as well as being an integral part of the complet-ed structure. We believe this to be the first time this innovative construction method has been used both EarthTEC and SMEC’s engineer were impressed with the results.