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Real-Time Monitoring of Landslides
BibTeX
@MISC{Reid_real-timemonitoring,
author = {Mark E. Reid and Richard G. Lahusen and Rex L. Baum and Jason W. Kean and William H. Schulz and Lynn M. Highl},
title = {Real-Time Monitoring of Landslides},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
Landslides cause fatalities and property damage throughout the Nation. To reduce the impact from hazardous landslides, the U.S. Geological Survey develops and uses real-time and near-real-time landslide monitoring systems. Monitoring can detect when hillslopes are primed for sliding and can provide early indications of rapid, catastrophic movement. Continuous information from up-to-the-minute or real-time monitoring provides prompt notification of landslide activity, advances our understanding of landslide behavior, and enables more effective engineering and planning efforts. During the exceptionally wet spring of 2006, thousands of tons of rock crashed onto one of the main highways leading into Yosemite National Park in the mountainous Sierra Nevada of California (fig. 1). These rocks, emanating from the massive Ferguson rockslide perched upslope, buried the highway and encroached into the Merced River. After 92 days, the highway was temporarily rerouted to the opposite side of the river. Nevertheless, geologists and land managers remained concerned—if the entire rock mass slid rapidly and blocked the river, it could cause upstream inundation and, potentially, downstream flooding. To help reduce the threat posed by this rockslide, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with other agencies, acted quickly to provide continuous near-real-time monitoring of rockslide activity. Spider units, developed for remote monitoring of active volcanoes, were airlifted by helicopter and positioned on the active slide (fig. 1, inset). These spider units contain high-precision Global Positioning System (GPS) units capable of detecting small movements of the rockslide. Data from these remote spider units are transmitted by radio to USGS computers (fig. 2). Graphs of slide movement, available over the Internet, display current activity to geologists, geotechnical engineers, and emergency
Keyphrases
real-time monitoring u.s. geological survey geotechnical engineer current activity entire rock mass effective engineering usgs computer rockslide activity landslide behavior remote monitoring massive ferguson rockslide main highway land manager yosemite national park property damage near-real-time landslide monitoring system planning effort opposite side continuous near-real-time monitoring downstream flooding catastrophic movement hazardous landslide active volcano wet spring continuous information small movement spider unit landslide cause fatality slide movement upstream inundation merced river landslide activity early indication active slide mountainous sierra nevada high-precision global positioning system remote spider unit prompt notification
