early warning; electrical resistivity tomography; landslides; moisture; monitoring; natural hazards; near-surface geophysics; %moisture; Acoustic sensing; Early warning; Electrical resistivity tomography; Geophysical monitoring; High resolution; Lower frequencies; Moisture accumulation; Natural hazard; Near-surface geophysics; Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment; Environmental Science (all); Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Abstract :
[en] Slope failures are an ongoing global threat leading to significant numbers of fatalities and infrastructure damage. Landslide impact on communities can be reduced using efficient early warning systems to plan mitigation measures and protect elements at risk. This manuscript presents an innovative geophysical approach to monitoring landslide dynamics, which combines electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and low-frequency distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), and was deployed on a slope representative of many landslides in clay rich lowland slopes. ERT is used to create detailed, dynamic moisture maps that highlight zones of moisture accumulation leading to slope instability. The link between ERT derived soil moisture and the subsequent initiation of slope deformation is confirmed by low-frequency DAS measurements, which were collocated with the ERT measurements and provide changes in strain at unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution. Auxiliary hydrological and slope displacement data support the geophysical interpretation. By revealing critical zones prone to failure, this combined ERT and DAS monitoring approach sheds new light on landslide mechanisms. This study demonstrates the advantage of including subsurface geophysical monitoring techniques to improve landslide early warning approaches, and highlights the importance of relying on observations from different sources to build effective landslide risk management strategies.
Disciplines :
Earth sciences & physical geography
Author, co-author :
Watlet, Arnaud ; Université de Mons - UMONS > Faculté Polytechnique > Service de Géologie fondamentale et appliquée ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Wilkinson, Paul; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Whiteley, Jim ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom ; Ground Engineering & Tunnelling, AtkinsRéalis, Bristol, United Kingdom
White, Adrian; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Uhlemann, Sebastian ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom ; Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Swift, Russell ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Ouellet, Susanne; University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Minto, Chris; Indeximate, Hinckley, United Kingdom
Meldrum, Philip; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Jones, Lee; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Gunn, David; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Godfrey, Alastair; Indeximate, Hinckley, United Kingdom
Dashwood, Ben ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Crickmore, Roger; Luna OptaSense, Dorchester, United Kingdom
Clarkson, Paul; Indeximate, Hinckley, United Kingdom
Boyd, James ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Chambers, Jonathan ; Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, United Kingdom
Research Institute for the Science and Management of Risks
Funders :
Natural Environment Research Council
Funding text :
BGS authors publish with the permission of the Executive Director, British Geological Survey (UKRI-NERC). We would like to thank Josie Gibson, Frances Standen and James Standen for their continued support at Hollin Hill. We also thank Brendon Purnell from Luna Optasense, and members of Environmental & Engineering Geophysics at BGS, including Mihai Cimpoiasu, Harry Harrison, Jessica Holmes, Cornelia Inauen, Oliver Kuras and Dave Morgan for their help and support. Processed data from ERT, low-frequency DAS, soil moisture sensors, tilt-meters, Shape Accelerometer Arrrays, LiDAR scans, GNSS surveys are available at Zenodo via https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13118623 with Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (British Geological Survey 2024). ERT data were pre-processed using Pandas (McKinney et al 2010), and Resipy (Blanchy et al 2020; https://resipy.org), inversions were performed using E4D (Johnson et al 2010; www.pnnl.gov/projects/e4d). Figures were created using Matplotlib (Hunter et al 2007); Paraview (Ahrens et al 2005), Qgis and InkScape. We thank two anonymous referees and the handling editor for their thoughtful comment which have contributed to improve this study.
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