Abstract
Slope failures are life-threatening geohazards well-known in the mining industry, where a single accident can endanger workers and cause million dollars’ -worth of activity downtime. Therefore, a detailed ground deformation map of an open-pit mine represents a vital planning tool and high-frequency monitoring is pivotal, since false or anticipated alarms may represent a higher impact than missed alarms. This article presents an application of interferometric satellite data from Sentinel-1. The scope of the study is showing the potential of the new generation of satellites for the detection of the boundary, typology, and kinematics of the on-going slope instabilities in open-pit mines. Most notably, this experience discloses how the short revisiting time (six days) permits the implementation of time of failure forecasting methods, which so far were a prerogative of ground-based monitoring systems. Only recently, a few experiences have shown the possibility of ( a posteriori ) predicting slope failures using displacement time series measured from satellite; the case study here described represents one of such first examples. Moreover, 11 other areas of instability have been detected and classified in terms of subsidence (sediment compaction) or slope failures, based on considerations concerning the acquisition geometry used to detect the movements. The movement vectors along the ascending and descending lines of sight have been combined to compute horizontal and vertical vectors, which have been employed to infer the geometry of the sliding surface of some selected slope instabilities. Despite the advancements of the technique, clear limitations still exist and are discussed in this article.
Highlights
T HE MANAGEMENT of unstable slope is a fundamental challenge in open-pit mines, mainly aimed at maintaining the safety of mine operations and at reducing perspective economic losses
After 20 years of experimentations in different fields [5]–[8], ground-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (GB-InSAR), or slope stability radar as it is most known in the mining industry, stood out as the cuttingedge technology for real-time slope failure monitoring aimed at identifying critical displacement thresholds useful for triggering response plans in open-pit mines [9], [10]
In order to support the interpretation of the deformations detected by satellite InSAR, a method was implemented, which was theorized by Carter and Bentley [53] and further developed by Cruden [54] and is aimed at estimating the depth and geometry of the sliding surface of a slope failure from superficial displacement vectors
Summary
T HE MANAGEMENT of unstable slope is a fundamental challenge in open-pit mines, mainly aimed at maintaining the safety of mine operations and at reducing perspective economic losses. The reduced revisiting time of the Sentinel constellation enables to derive detailed information from deformation time series; here an attempt is presented to apply the inverse velocity method [36] on satellite SAR time series to provide the time of failure of an unstable slope, in an open-pit mine. Such applications are still pioneering; since a real forecasting (i.e., not made a posteriori) has not been documented yet, every experience that can prove its feasibility assumes a great importance [37]–[39]. A limitation to the applicability of the InSAR techniques described here is that they typically require large sets of multitemporal data for the processing, which, in some cases, may be conflicting with the need for fast responses in the framework of an early warning system
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
