It is common sense that the possibility of a rockfall increases after an intense rainfall and it is well documented that rainfalls accelerate earth surface displacements such as landslides and rockfalls. This qualitative correlation is highly affected by the geology and climate condition of the area under consideration. The research project entitled "Development of an integrated system for rockfall identification in highways", funded by the Operational Program Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)) aims to develop an operational system for early warning of rockfalls that occur along transportation corridors. To accomplish this goal the influence and the time gap between triggering mechanisms and rockfall incidents is investigated. In this work, previous studies towards quantitative correlation of rainfall magnitude and earth surface displacements are briefly presented. Based on these works, and taking into account that rockfall incidents, in the majority of Mediterranean countries, are not well-documented, data obtained by a slope stability monitoring network are used to quantitatively determine the magnitude of the rainfall that caused the slope's movement.

Date Published: 19 June 2015
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9535, Third International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2015), 95350M (19 June 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2193463

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9535:
Third International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2015)
Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis; Kyriacos Themistocleous; Silas Michaelides; Giorgos Papadavid, Editor(s)