Integrated Monitoring and Assessment of Rockfall

The paper will present a new methodology for the assessment and monitoring of rockfalls through an integrated multidisciplinary approach. Current solutions include classical surveying instruments (e.g. total stations, GPS) integrated to sensors for monitoring local deformations (e.g. strain-gauges, deformometers), whichare used to achieve information about a limited number of critical points of arock slope, complemented by geological inspection and qualitative analysis. The innovation of this approach is firstly based on the use of some new sensors which allow to increase the achievable information: terrestrial remote sensors - laser scanner and ground-based interferometric SAR - would allow the measurement of deformations of whole surfaces instead of single points, ground penetrating radar the exploration of rock sub-surface, digital photogrammetry the automatic measurement of crack deformations, seismic and acoustic sensors the detection of vibrations and sounds which could be pre-signal of a rockfall. Th second stage of the reasearch involves the integration of different techniques to exploit the full achievable data.This means either the integrated use of sensor and the the development of expert systems to integrate different measurements and to make decisions. All activities will be carried out through the setup of some test fields in the Alpine area, where all investigation techniques will be tested.