Real-time landslides monitoring and warning using RFID technology for measuring ground water level

Abstract

Across the world, economic and social landslide losses have increased as human development has expanded into unstable onto hill slopes. Every landslide catastrophe produces a significant loss to infrastructures, services and buildings as well as resulting in large numbers of casualties and fatalities. Although ground water level is often a primary controlling factor in landsliding, modeling of ground water is difficult due to the complex internal geology in most landslides. There are different approaches to locate the ground water table. Field observations are vital. This research has focussed on the utilization of integrated applications of Radio Frequency (RF) technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), with ultrasonic sensors for accurate and timely identification and monitoring of ground water level in slopes and landslide susceptible areas. RFID integrated with ultrasonic and temperature sensors provide an opportunity to monitor groundwater in landslide susceptible areas on a real-time basis. The transmission of data to the central database can be carried out with the help of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), and the collected data can be used for slope stability analysis. © 2011 WIT Press.