Abstract:

The technical presentation details the work and results of STINGS and i2MON – both research and innovation projects funded by the European Union to establish a ground- and space borne remote sensing and analysis system to effectively and cost-efficiently monitor critical ground infrastructure stability and content, primarily including mining areas, mine slopes and tailings dams. The projects are dedicated to increase the safety standards related to operations and to deliver the related mining sector, government, citizens and all stakeholders affected by previous and current activities with an extended monitoring and early warning system for identification of operational impact and environmental risk. The technical feasibility of the developments strongly depends on the underlying technical components. In these projects, in particular differential and persistent scatterer interferometry (dInSAR, PSI, SBAS) is of interest in order to detect and monitor surface deformation occurring at the mine sites. Furthermore, radar absorption methods are investigated to identify soil moisture changes by multi-temporal analysis of SAR-Data from Sentinel 1 applied for the detection of ground moisture changes due to leakages of liquids from the tailings pond. In-situ sensor development and sensor application to detect movements and instabilities at slope sites is another major task in STINGS and i2MON. While various sensors (GNSS) and data logging technology are available on the market - within the projects the focus is on the development of low cost equipment with automated communication technology (ICT) for automated sensor data transfer and automated LIDAR long range laser scanning. The work provides an important part corresponding to the integration of the various systems for the proposed interdisciplinary monitoring of mining areas. The data management and early warning system developed during the project will accumulate all information and create safety information about the supervised areas. The main regions for system development within the project are South America with a tailing site in Chile and Europe with an open pit lignite mine in Germany. The technical presentation shows the current development status, insights and knowledge gained and details the current results at the pilot sites.

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Jane Dawson