Drones and laser scanning technologies are quite advanced and they are now utilized for assessing the damage and size of collapses. The authors have been developing techniques utilizing the quantification of various collapses induced by the Kumamoto earthquakes and other natural agents. The authors utilized drones and laser scanning technology for the quantifications of landslides, failure of bridge foundations induced by the Kumamoto earthquake. The authors also evaluated the size and geometrical position of tsunami boulders in Okinawa Island and Shimoji Island. In this study, the authors briefly introduce the technology utilizing drones and laser scanning technology. Then several applications of these techniques to actual events observed such as slope failures, faulting induced displacement and tsunami boulders are presented and the applicability of these technologies in Rock Engineering are discussed.
The recent earthquakes such as 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, 1999 Kocaeli earthquake clearly showed that the rock slopes, cliffs bridges and their foundations and tunnels may be quite vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes. Drones and laser scanning technologies are quite advanced and they are now utilized for assessing the damage and size of collapses in many engineering projects. Furthermore, they may be utilized for long-term monitoring of rock engineering structures for maintenance projects.
The authors have been developing techniques utilizing the quantification of various collapses induced by the Kumamoto earthquakes and other natural agents. The 2016 Kumamoto earthquake caused a landslide in the vicinity of Takano village and it was one of causes of the collapse of Great Aso Bridge, the rock foundations of Choyou Bridge. Furthermore, the Tawarayama tunnel was damaged by secondary faulting and slopes failures (Aydan et al. 2018a,b). It is also known that there are many tsunami boulders in islands of Ryukyu Archipelago. The authors utilized drones and laser scanning technology for the quantifications of landslides, failure of bridge foundations induced by the Kumamoto earthquake. The authors also evaluated the size and geometrical position of tsunami boulders in Okinawa Island and Shimoji Island. Furthermore, this technology is used to evaluate some slope failures caused by heavy rainfalls and the topographical situation of cliffs in Miyako Island.
