Characteristics analysis of the reservoir landslides base on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) scanning technology at the Maoergai Hydropower Station, Southwest China

Abstract

With the development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, UAV scanning technology has been applied widely in the world. However, the application of UAV is not sufficient in the current geotechnical engineering due to its high cost. The paper analyzed landslide characteristics of the Maoergai reservoir base on a small UAV. With the help of Pix4D, the image data collected by UAV can be processed into a three-dimensional terrain. And then the characteristics including landslide scale, landslide elevation, average slope can be obtained by use of Google Earth software. Analysis results reveal that the occurrence frequency of landslides is very high, and the most prone to triggering reservoir landslide elevation is about 2150m∼2199m. In addition, 30° to 35° is the major slope range that reservoir landslides occurred. Water fluctuation (rising or drawdown of the water level) played a key role in triggering Maoergai reservoir landslides. The potential initiation mechanism of a reservoir landslide due to the fluctuation of water level was discussed in the paper. Through the application in the hydropower engineering, the paper provided some ideas for the further development of UAV scanning technology.