hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
The Earth’s surface is constantly changing as material is redistributed by processes like slope failures, debris flows and floods. Although
this is a natural part of landscape evolution, we perceive many of these processes as hazards. Especially during their extreme
manifestations, they can cause significant damage and even injury and loss of life. The process understanding that is necessary for
the safe keeping of the environment that we live in can be obtained by acute observation. Seismic measurements provide distinct
advantages over traditional methods. Within a sensor network, many important processes at the Earth’s surface can be observed
and identified, along with their meteorological drivers. Further, seismic networks make it possible to monitor the entire landscape
without the need of a prior choice of location. In this way, nearly complete event catalogues can be obtained and the interaction of
different processes can be studied. The potential of seismic observations of Earth surface processes is illustrated with an example
from the Illgraben, Switzerland. There, a two-way interaction between rock slope failures and debris flows was observed during a
summer thunderstorm.
