Detection, Monitoring, and Early Warning of Landslides Using In-Situ Ground-Based Monitoring Techniques: A Review

Abstract

Landslide is a widespread natural threat to human lives and property. Particularly, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India, landslides cause traffic interruptions, structural and vehicular damage, and fatalities every year. In this paper, the state-of-the-art in essential components of landslide monitoring and early warning is reviewed. Especially, the in-situ ground-based monitoring techniques and landslide early warning using rainfall and other physical thresholds are presented in detail. Summarily, in-situ ground-based monitoring techniques involve sensor-based surface and subsurface monitoring of the site at a regular time interval. Parameters that are primarily monitored are precipitation, pore water pressure, moisture saturation, ground water level, surface, and subsurface displacements, among others. To integrate the ground-based sensor data with an early warning system, a wireless sensor network (WSN) system is employed. The algorithm used by the WSN for early warning of landslides uses predefined thresholds for the monitored triggering parameters. Though the rainfall-based threshold model is mostly used for early warning systems, its effect on landslides is difficult to assess quantitatively as the occurrence of landslides depends on a lot of factors, including heterogeneity of the soil. Thus, this paper also presents some of the reported threshold models based on relationships between soil properties and the occurrence of landslides. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.