Accurate IoT Based Slope Instability Sensing System for Landslide Detection

Landslides are one of the prominent natural disasters in India that account for an estimated property loss of 66 million USD and the fatality of 200 lives in the Himalayan region and the Western Ghats every year. The present systems for monitoring, detecting and early warning of these landslides are based upon radar satellite interferometry, laser scanning or LIDAR, high-resolution imaging via satellites and wireless geophysical sensor networks. All the above systems are either too expensive for large area deployment or less accurate or lack real-time characteristics required for landslide detection. Above all different types of landslides like rainfall induced landslides, earthquake induced landslides, creep landslides, shallow landslides and deep seated landslides pose several challenges in monitoring and detection such as (a) time duration for event detection (swift to long duration) (b) localizing the slip surface depth for event detection (c) recurrence of the precursor triggering events (d) extent of durability of sensor system (e) uncertainty in spatial coverage of the event. To address the above challenges, this paper proposes the design and development of a wireless integrated landslide monitoring system. To enhance the reliability of this system, a low-cost slope instability sensing sensor was also integrated to this Landslide Early Warning System. This sensor’s design, development, testing and calibration is the primary focus of this paper. Further,the paper also discusses about the real-world deployment of this system to monitor one of the thickly populated landslide-prone area in Sikkim, North Eastern Himalayas.