Innovative extenso-inclinometer for slow-moving deep-seated landslide monitoring in an early warning perspective

Extensive urban areas worldwide face significant landslide hazards, impacting inhabitants, buildings, and critical infrastructures alike. In the case of slow-moving deep-seated landslides involving huge areas and characterized by complex patterns, when the cost of repairing infrastructures, relocating communities, and restoring cultural sites might be such that it is unsustainable for the community, the exposed structures require significant effort for their surveillance and protection, which can be supported by the development of innovative monitoring systems. For this purpose, a smart extenso-inclinometer, realized by equipping a conventional inclinometer tube with distributed strain and temperature transducers based on optical fiber sensing technology, is presented. In situ monitoring of the active deep-seated San Nicola landslide in Centola (Campania, southern Italy) demonstrated its ability to capture the main features of movements and reconstruct a tridimensional evolution of the landslide pattern, even when the entity of both vertical and horizontal soil strain components is comparable. Although further tests are needed to definitively ascertain the extensometer function of the new device, by interpreting the strain profiles of the landslide body and identifying the achievement of predetermined thresholds, this system could provide a warning of the trigger of a landslide event. The use of the smart extenso-inclinometer within an early warning system for slow-moving landslides holds immense potential for reducing the impact of landslide events.