Terrestrial laser scanning of rock slope instabilities

Abellán, Antonio, Oppikofer, Thierry, Jaboyedoff, Michel, Rosser, Nicholas, Lim, Michael and Lato, Matthew (2014) Terrestrial laser scanning of rock slope instabilities. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 39 (1). pp. 80-97. ISSN 0197-9337

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Abstract

This manuscript presents a review on the application of a remote sensing technique (terrestrial laser scanning, TLS) to a well-known topic (rock slope characterization and monitoring). Although the number of publications on the use of TLS in rock slope studies has rapidly increased in the last 5–10 years, little effort has been made to review the key developments, establish a code of best practice and unify future research approaches. The acquisition of dense 3D terrain information with high accuracy, high data acquisition speed and increasingly efficient post-processing workflows is helping to better quantify key parameters of rock slope instabilities across spatial and temporal scales ranging from cubic decimetres to millions of cubic metres and from hours to years, respectively. Key insights into the use of TLS in rock slope investigations include: (a) the capability of remotely obtaining the orientation of slope discontinuities, which constitutes a great step forward in rock mechanics; (b) the possibility to monitor rock slopes
which allows not only the accurate quantification of rockfall rates across wide areas but also the spatio-temporal modelling of rock slope deformation with an unprecedented level of detail. Studying rock slopes using TLS presents a series of key challenges, from accounting for the fractal character of rock surface to detecting the precursory deformation that may help in the future prediction of rock failures. Further investigation on the development of new algorithms for point cloud filtering, segmentation, feature extraction, deformation tracking and change detection will significantly improve our understanding on how rock slopes behave and evolve.
Perspectives include the use of new 3D sensing devices and the adaptation of techniques and methods recently developed in other disciplines as robotics and 3D computer-vision to rock slope instabilities research.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Published online before print.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	LiDAR, terrestrial laser scanner, rock slope, characterization, discontinuity, orientation, landslide, rockfall, monitoring, mass wasting
Subjects:	F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences
Department:	Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Geography and Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Prof Michael Lim
Date Deposited:	13 Dec 2013 14:32
Last Modified:	13 Oct 2019 00:36
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/14796

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