Citation

Wang C, Li Q, Zhu J, Gao W, Shan X, Song J, Ding X. Sci. Rep. 2017; 7: e43351.

Affiliation

The Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/srep43351

PMID

28256522

Abstract

The time-series topography change of a landfill site before its failure has rarely been surveyed in detail. However, this information is important for both landfill management and early warning of landslides. Here, we take the 2015 Shenzhen landslide as an example, and we use the radar shape-from-shading (SFS) technique to retrieve time-series digital elevation models of the landfill. The results suggest that the total filling volume reached 4,074,300 m(3) in the one and a half years before the landslide, while 2,817,400 m(3) slid down in the accident. Meanwhile, the landfill rate in most areas exceeded 2 m/month, which is the empirical upper threshold in landfill engineering. Using topography captured on December 12, 2015, the slope safety analysis gives a factor of safety of 0.932, suggesting that this slope was already hazardous before the landslide. We conclude that the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) SFS technique has the potential to contribute to landfill failure monitoring.

Language: en