SAMCoT - Annual Report 2015

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60 SAMC oT • ANNUAL REPORT 2015
physical processes, time-lapse photography of slope
degradation processes, continuous temperature measure-
ments of the soil at two typical sites of the coast, etc.
PhD candidate Daria Aleksyutina at MSU studies the
features of coastal erosion for coasts composed of frozen
soils (typical for Baydaratskaya Bay). In 2015 she concluded
her laboratory work on frozen soil and performed numeri-
cal simulations of costal retreat based on her labora-
tory data, enabling her to calculate the interval of coastal
erosion rates for different soils. Daria Aleksyutina stayed at
NTNU as a visiting PhD student for three months from the
start of August to the end of November 2015. In this period,
she collaborated with researchers at NTNU and was able to
submit the scientific paper `Baydaratskaya Bay: A recess-
ing Arctic coast, heavily affected by complex cryogenic
processes` to the international Journal of Permafrost and
Periglacial Processes. In addition, she completed the first
draft of her doctoral thesis.
Coastal Erosion in a Changing Climate
SINTEF researchers made noticeable contributions to WP6
in 2015. Dr Thi Le has developed a numerical method for
estimating the size of the failure mass which is an impor-
tant factor governing the rate of coastal erosion. The
method is described in a journal paper published in 2015.
While this method is developed for research software
(CODE_BRIGHT) and can be used for unsaturated soils, it
still needs to be tested further for frozen soils. An additional
contribution from SINTEF is a journal paper published in
2015 describing the terrestrial processes affecting uncon-
solidated coastal erosion disparities in the central fjords
of Svalbard. Finally, Dr Arne Instanes submitted a paper to
the journal Cold Regions Science and Technology in 2015
discussing how to incorporate climate-warming scenarios
in coastal permafrost engineering design, incorporating
case studies from Svalbard.
Russian Field Sites:
Baydaratskaya Bay in the Kara Sea &
Varandaey
Sinitsyn presented a paper at The XVI European Conference
on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE)
about the geotechnical investigation of permafrost in
Svalbard. Sinitsyn reviewed the final report from The State
Oceanographic Institute (SOI), Moscow on the Varandey
fieldwork from 2012 to 2015, and he is taking part in the
discussion between SOI and the leaders of WPs 1 and 6
about the continuation of the fieldwork in Varandey.
In 2015, Sinitsyn and Guegan took the first step towards
translating the knowledge gained in WP6 into guidelines
required by the industry for the design of environmentally
friendly and sustainable coastal structures and technolo-
gies. This work resulted in two reports which will be
communicated, discussed further and followed up in 2016.
With support from SAMCoT/WP6, MSU performed exten-
sive fieldwork at Baydaratskaya Bay in the Kara Sea in
2015. Valuable full-scale data were gathered and made
available to SAMCoT researchers. This included mapping,
measuring coastline retreat rate, observing the underlying
Daria Aleksyutina during her stay in Trondheim as visiting
researcher at NTNU