Improved measurement of soil moisture using an ultrasonic waveguide to predict rainfall-induced slope failure

Abstract

Field monitoring of soil moisture and groundwater level is important to predict shallow slope failure stemming from heavy rainfall. We previously proposed a monitoring technique using ultrasonic waveguides in which soil moisture and groundwater levels are monitored on the basis of the intensity and propagation time of ultrasonic waves reflected from the underground soil surface, respectively. In field monitoring, the reflective intensity depends on the depth of monitoring points and the inhomogeneity of grains, so it has been difficult to examine the reflective intensity change quantitatively. In the present work, we propose improvements that will allow us to measure the intensity change quantitatively. Specifically, we utilize an ultrasonic waveguide of a constant length by using casing pipes with different lengths depending on the monitoring depth and cover the surface of coarse-grained soil with a homogeneous fine soil to obtain repeatable data for wetting and drying cycles. The positive effects of these improvements were confirmed by a field monitoring test.