Real-time Surface Monitoring for Improved Safety, Response, And Repair

The recent, rapid, and overwhelming movement of the Hooskanaden landslide in 2019 and the Arizona Inn landslide in early 2023 greatly disrupted traffic along US 101 with several days of full road closure followed by prolonged reduced capacity and weeks of traffic control for repairs. Alarmingly, numerous precarious landslides exist throughout the state that can result in similar consequences, triggered by precipitation or erosion—both of which will be exacerbated with climate change. Real-time, on-site instrumentation is essential to characterize landslide kinematics as well as detect and predict movements that can disrupt the highway system. Real-time, on-site instrumentation can also help inform the timing of repair and estimation of material needs, improving both on-site safety and maintenance costs associated with repair. However, the standard methodology for landslide instrumentation requires costly drilling beneath the earth’s surface—which is frequently unsafe, costly, and infeasible on an active landslide. Further, drilled subsurface instrumentation is oftentimes destroyed with landslide movement, providing only short-term usefulness for obtaining active landslide data. This project will develop and deploy low-cost surface monitoring strategies to monitor landslide movements, leveraging Oregon Department of Transportation's (ODOT's) recent proof-of-concept success using real-time kinematic global navigation satellite systems (RTK-GNSS) to monitor the Arizona Inn landslide failure, which enabled real-time delivery of critical information to help inform closure actions and repairs. Further development and establishment of surface monitoring methods will also inform statewide characterization of active slides that impact ODOT infrastructure where drilling is cost prohibitive, unsafe, or impossible.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Contract Numbers:

  SPR 878

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Oregon Department of Transportation

  355 Capital St NE MS42
  Salem, Oregon  United States  97301
• Project Managers:

  Glover-Cutter, Kira

• Performing Organizations:

  Oregon State University, Corvallis

  Corvallis, OR  United States  97331
• Principal Investigators:

  Leshchinsky, Ben

• Start Date: 20230901
• Expected Completion Date: 20270831
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Landslides; Monitoring; Real time information; Surface dynamics
• Identifier Terms: Global Navigation Satellite System
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Geotechnology; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01964196
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Oregon Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: SPR 878
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Aug 28 2025 3:09PM