Focus

.Monitoring landslides

When monitoring landsldies (Fig.1) it is of utmost importance obtaining set of data that are: i - continuous; ii - reliable; iii - obtained contemporaneously by means of different techniques and from different sources, in oredr to obtai a model that is as consistent as possible with resect to the real phenomenon to model. Using innovative and technologically advanced instrumentation, allows the continuous monitoring and the gathering of the different parameters that characterize slope movements, with enough continuity and precision. Continuity of data set is important in order to gather transient phenomena that may explain some unclear aspects of landsliding. As regards technology, in these last years there have been several innovative products, one of which is the Automatic Inclimometer System (AIS, Pat. CNR No TO98A000555, Fis. 2,3,4,5) whicha was designed for the continuous monitoring of movements at depth, in place of the tarditional fixed inclinometric sets. Cosenza Seztion, in order to allow the opening to the traffic of an importan road that was closed because of the reactivation of a large landslide, in 2000 installed a monitoring system based on GPS precision recordings and deformation quadrilaterals set along mai fractures (Fis. 6,7,8). Later on, two inclinometric tubed were installed in orer to gather movements at depth, piezometric drillings and a meteo gauging station. Data of one GPS station, of piezometrs and of meteo station were elaborated and broadcast via satellite system (Orbcom) to a base-station at IRPI (Fig. 9). The system was designed and implemented by IRPI researchers, with the help of an enterprise specialized in informatics. Besides the innovativeaspects of the data transmission, the novelty of the system was the co-operation, under the co-ordination of IRPI, of different territorial agencies, this fact being impossible until that time in Calabria. All gathered data cocsistetly confirmed one single model for landslide geometry and movement, and allowed the management of the traffic on the active landslide. Other innovative technologies in the monitoring of landslides have been used in the recent past for other cases as the Tessina Landslide (Padova Section), the Assisi landslide (Perugio Section), and the Caramanico landslide (Bari Section), that are not described here for the limits to the length of the text. Remote sense techniques are also under development at different sections, and appear to promising for the studies of territorial landsliding. Lastly, monitoring is not a novelty, in itself, but can it be innovative, and it is turning out to be for sure a powerful tool for the development of knowledge in the field of mass movement.

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