Using GPS for Monitoring Landslides in Kala Reservoir of the Yalong River Area

Abstract

Landslide is a kind of serious geologic disaster. It’s very important to monitor the deformation of the landslide area that threatens the lives or constructions. There are some successful applications in deformation monitoring using GPS. In certain circumstance, the continuous observation and real-time 3D coordinates with high precision can be carried out automatically using GPS. However, most of the landslide areas lie in canyons where the signals from GPS satellites are sheltered seriously. So in this case, to get precise and reliable results in deformation monitoring using GPS is a problem which needs being discussed and solved. In this paper, the landslides monitoring project in the Kala Reservoir area using GPS in China is introduced firstly. The design of deformation monitoring GPS network and the data processing method are discussed subsequently. The results of the deformation monitoring indicate that the requirements of the project are accomplished.