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Overview

China is a mountainous country with countless geological disasters such as landslides and mudslides caused by heavy rainfall every year. Geohazard monitoring, which mainly includes landslide monitoring and mudslide monitoring, is becoming increasingly important.

The Chinese government has invested more than 4 billion RMB, establishing a nationwide geological disaster monitoring and early warning system. It covers 17 provinces and has been completed by April 15th, 2021. As a major solution provider, Hi-Target is responsible for the construction of monitoring systems in several provinces. This article will introduce Hi-Target’s geohazard monitoring system in Yunnan Province, China, as an example.

Project Background

Take Lijiang City in Yunnan Province as an example. Hi-Target remediated a total of 166 hidden spots and built a total of 784 monitoring points. The project involved the application of 12 types of equipment and monitoring sensors. The construction period was 53 days, and the equipment on-time and online rate was over 98%.

The whole project construction process can be divided into site survey and selection of points, infrastructure construction, equipment installation, and device debug & inspection. The points construction is mainly for landslide monitoring, rock collapse monitoring and mudslide monitoring.

1. Geohazard Monitoring Process – On-Site Survey & Selection

First, depending on the topography of the site and the potential disaster situation, determine what equipment we need to build and where to build.

The main stations are divided into four categories, GNSS station to monitor the displacement of the mountain, rainfall station to observe the change of rainfall, mud level meter to monitor the mudslide disaster, acousto-optic alarm station to issue a timely warning. Others are some sensors for further auxiliary.

Next, a site survey will determine the specific construction site with the coordinates, monitoring items and dates marked on the map.

As shown in the table below, rainfall gauges are required in most areas because most geohazard disasters such as landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. Therefore, it is necessary to build some acousto-optic alarm stations near the villages and along roads to warn our citizens at once.

2. Geohazard Monitoring Process-Construction

When we complete the site checkpoint, the project will enter into the construction phase. Then, it includes foundation construction, battery compartment pre-burial, main bracket installation, and guardrail installation.

Different devices and sensors will have different construction processes. All construction standards are according to the standard uniform specification defined by Hi-Target. Meanwhile, all materials will be sent to the project site directly by Hi-Target for installation.

The standard for all of our monitoring projects is that there is no need to rework on site. Just install it directly and uniformly according to the installation specifications.

3.  Advanced RTK Technology Empowers the Capability

When all foundation construction and bracket construction are completed, the field installation of the device will be carried out and all devices will be uniformly installed on the engineering boxes and brackets according to the specifications, going as shown in the following figure.

4. Geohazard Monitoring Process – Debug & Inspection

Finally, data forwarding and online commissioning of the system will be performed to ensure that all devices are working properly.

In this case, eventually, all data will go back to the government’s unified early warning system for centralized management.

The following pictures show the 4 most representative stations in geohazard monitoring: landslide monitoring station, mudslide monitoring station, crack and collapse monitoring station, and rainfall monitoring station.

End

Lastly, I would like to briefly list all the Hi-Target monitoring devices applied to this project. It includes GNSS receiver, multi-dimensional monitoring device(tilt/acceleration/crack), geotechnical sensors, DTU and various alarm devices.

All of them are low-power products and solar panel is the support. They are also wireless communication and are widely used in hundreds of projects.