The urgent need for remote sensing in geotechnical engineering
In my late 40s I am reflecting on how I started my career in geotechnical engineering in the European Alps on a rock slope stability project. I turned up as a 19-year-old and was asked to help assess a rock slope above a new tunnel portal. The engineering geologist, with a long white beard, took me to the gear shed and fixed me up with a harness and some ropes, and took me up a 50 m cliff. The safety talk was basic, but I thought it adequate. Over the course of that summer, I developed some great skills and learned a lot. But now with close to 30 years of hindsight, I realise I was put into a hazardous situation.
So, what has changed? We are now more considerate of our own wellbeing, health, and safety. We consider training and the need for requisite skills well before situations where we might need them arise. Remote sensing, among other emerging or established technologies, also helps. For example, engineers no longer need to spend long periods on slope faces exposed to hazards. Do not get me wrong, I still consider the skill to read a slope or rock face in situ essential, but I no longer consider the need to be hung from a rock face for weeks to be essential. Technology has changed how we work and how we approach solutions. Digital rock mapping, developed over the past decade, greatly reduces the need to spend long periods near slope hazards, especially if those hazards are seismically triggered and unpredictable.
It is not just about capturing the information remotely to increase safety, but also about being able to share the information digitally, work collaboratively across the globe, improve quality, and get more reliable data. Based on projects where I have used these digital tools, I have noted that they are safer, cheaper, and quicker to employ compared to tradtional rock mapping. Consequently, I am an enthusiastic driver of remote sensing and consider it to be a truly disruptive technology!
About the authors:
Camilla and Jan are both Principals in Ground and Underground Engineering with the global professional services firm, Aurecon. Both live in New Zealand but deliver projects across the globe. Camilla leads the Ground Engineering Team in Christchurch, New Zealand. She is a Chartered Geologist with nearly 20 years of experience working across the UK, Australia, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Her main technical skills include geohazard analysis and mitigation, geotechnical emergency response, technical team leadership and project management. Camilla has been heavily involved in the assessment, response and remediation of the multiple geohazards affecting the New Zealand people following the Canterbury and Kaikura earthquakes of 2011 and 2016.
Jan is a Geotechnical Engineering and Earthquake Engineering Specialist and maintains a global project portfolio. He was closely involved with the complex Canterbury and Kaikoura Earthquake Sequences as a first responder with Urban Search and Rescue. He is globally recognised as an earthquake engineering specialist overseeing various engineering aspects of emergency response and recovery. Over the past decade while seconded to the NZ Central Government, he managed severely earthquake damaged buildings and land by innovating with digital tools and applying smart technologies.
Both, Camilla and Jan, enjoy peer reviews, expert witness work, forensic engineering, and champion technical mastery. Together they wrote multiple publications on the application of smart materials and technology for sustainable horizontal infrastructure, civil structures, and buildings. Both are regularly invited as keynote speakers at international conferences on speaking about innovation, resilience, sustainability and state of the art digital tools.
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