Automatic Monitoring with Distributed Temperature Sensors for Improved Levee Knowledge: Adige River Case Study

The behaviour of river levee is significantly influenced by various factors, including the soil heterogeneity on foundation or within the embankment. These heterogeneities can serve as preferential pathways for water, leading to anomalous seepage flows that may potentially compromise the levee structural integrity during the flood events. As this aspect is becoming more frequent for effect of the global climate change, the safety evaluation of existing levees is a strong challenge requiring to improve their monitoring. The presented study investigates the application of Distributed Temperature Sensors (DTS) to measure temperature variations in an advanced levee monitoring system. Thermal anomalies detected in such structures can indicate water leakage, thereby initiating erosive processes, heterogeneity, cracks or voids. Key advantages of DTS over conventional methods include high spatial resolution for data collection over distances up to kilometres, survival in harsh environments, automated data acquisition and the generation of dense datasets suitable for developing AI prediction models. The case study here presented is about the continuous monitoring of a levee stretch along the Adige River in Salorno (BZ), where a DTS interrogation unit was recently installed. Prior to this update, measurements were conducted manually on a bi-monthly basis, a factor that introduced uncertainties related to temperature variation due to seasonality. The collected data serves two primary objectives: enhancing the understanding of hydraulic behaviours and stability conditions within this specific levee section and assessing the reliability and potential of this promising monitoring technique.