SENSUM: Smart SENSing of landscapes Undergoing hazardous hydrogeological Movement

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Floods and landslides affect the UK every year, both inland and along the coast, causing disruption, occasional fatalities and severe economic loss. An increase in storminess under climate change and population pressure are resulting in an increase in landslide and flood hazards in the UK and globally and threatening the defences put in place to manage these hazards. Monitoring of unstable hillslopes and flood-prone rivers as well as defences designed to manage these is increasingly vital. Landslides and floods are both triggered by heavy rainfall, often occur at the same time, and may interact to generate a chain reaction of knock-on hazardous effects. SENSUM proposes a new integrated way to tackle these 'hydrogeological' hazards, taking advantage of advances in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, microelectronics and machine learning. Those exciting new tools will be used to monitor the stability of defences, provide warnings of hazard events, and improve mathematical models and visualisation of hazardous phenomena. Landslides and floods have traditionally been monitored using a combination of satellite-based remote-sensing techniques and wired ground-based instruments to measure factors that control the related hazard, such as river flow level, displacement and soil moisture. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) show great potential for monitoring and early warning of these hazards. Their main advantage is their use of easily deployable, low-power sensors enabling continuous, long-term, low-cost monitoring of the environment. For landslides and floods, which occur infrequently and unpredictably, this is an important technological advance. SENSUM proposes to develop innovative smart tracking devices, embedded in boulders and woody debris on hillslopes and in rivers to give real-time warning of movement related to landslide and flood processes. Collaborating closely with external partners, the team of experts in the SENSUM project will develop and test the tracking devices both in dedicated laboratory experiments and in the field, with the deployment of trial networks of smart boulders and woody debris in different localities in the UK and abroad. The large set of data obtained from sites and experiments will be used to improve mathematical models, to develop innovative early warning systems and in 3D digital visualisations. This integrated approach will enable us to establish a comprehensive understanding of landslide and flood processes which will significantly reduce risk to society.The SENSUM team is a diverse, interdisciplinary and multinational team made up of a range of environmental scientists and engineers, computer scientists and science communication specialists from three leading UK universities: University of Exeter, University of East Anglia and University of Plymouth and will involve several project partners including the Environment Agency, Forest England, Natural England and AECOM. It will work closely with these project partners to design an effective digital environment for monitoring and managing landslide and flood hazards in the UK, and to target applied risk management challenges. For example, in the UK, the Environment Agency is tasked with giving a 2-hour warning to the population affected by floods. However, these warnings are lacking in the upland areas of the UK's landscape due to a lack of instruments to monitor river flow. The smart tracking devices embedded within boulder and woody debris in landslides and river channels proposed by SENSUM will help address that limitation, and therefore will significantly improve early warning of movement and consequently the assessment of potential high-risk natural events. The team will also engage stakeholders and the general public through the creation of compelling visualizations of landslide and flood hazards and through project workshops and outreach activities.