Remote Sensing Applications for Landslide Monitoring and Investigation in Western Canada

Abstract

Transportation infrastructure in mountainous terrain and through river valleys is exposed to a variety of landslide phenomena. This is particularly the case for highway and railway corridors in Western Canada that connect towns and industries through prairie valleys and the Canadian cordillera. The fluidity of these corridors is important for the economy of the country and the safety of workers, and users of this infrastructure is paramount. Stabilization of all active slopes is financially challenging given the extensive area where landslides are a possibility, and monitoring and minimization of slope failure consequences becomes an attractive risk management strategy. In this regard, remote sensing techniques provide a means for enhancing the monitoring toolbox of the geotechnical engineer. This includes an improved identification of active landslides in large areas, robust complement to in-place instrumentation for enhanced landslide investigation, and an improved definition of landslide extents and deformation mechanisms. This paper builds upon the extensive literature on the application of remote sensing techniques and discusses practical insights gained from a suite of case studies from the authors’ experience in Western Canada. The review of the case studies presents a variety of landslide mechanisms and remote sensing technologies. The aim of the paper is to transfer some of the insights gained through these case studies to the reader.

Mining Geological Environment Monitoring and Real-Time Transmission Based on Internet of Things Technology

“…Macciotta and Hendry proposed to apply a wireless sensor network to landslide monitoring and designed a wireless sensor network. Simulation and physical experiments show that the proposed wireless sensor network architecture can meet the requirements of long-term observation and data transmission [ 11 ]. Song et al designed a landslide monitoring system based on a wireless sensor network, and through the theoretical and error analysis of the data collected in the example, it is concluded that the wireless sensor system can save energy, have wide applicability and strong practicability, and can better solve the uncertainty problem in landslide monitoring [ 12 ].…”

Slope Shape and Edge Intelligent Recognition Technology Based on Deep Neural Sensing Network

“…Instead, it will backfire and cause the dilemma of network degradation. To overcome this dilemma, residual network proposed the identity mapping between modules in 2016, which can deepen the network to more layers and ensure the performance does not degrade [16,17].…”

Characteristics, Kinematics and Contributing Factors of Compound and Translational Landslides in the Interior Plains of Canada

“…The Chin Coulee landslide is a retrogressive compound landslide, with its failure surface deep-seated in a highly fractured clay shale, sliding almost horizontally through a weak coal layer tilting slightly upwards, approximately 2 • towards the reservoir. The landslide kinematics consist of an active wedge moving downwards and pushing a passive wedge towards the reservoir, at approximately 10 to 50 mm/year [14,[32][33][34][35]. Figure 6 illustrates the Chin Coulee landslide features in a typical cross-section.…”