Urban infrastructural health diagnosis with satellite-terrestrial sensing technologies

ABSTRACT

Civil infrastructural safety is a key indicator for a sustainable built environment. Urban ground subsidence and infrastructural deformation are threatening infrastructural health and human well-being, in particular, in those rapidly urbanized regions in China and other Asian developing countries. Today, advances in satellite and terrestrial sensor technologies are enabling the creation of an integrated satellite–terrestrial sensor network for regular ‘Urban Computed Tomography Diagnosis’ and early warning of potential deformation disasters. This paper reviews the key earth observation and terrestrial sensor technologies for urban infrastructural health diagnosis, and proposes the potentials and prospects for future development of the satellite–terrestrial system.

KEYWORDS:

• SAR interferometry
• deformation monitoring
• wireless sensor network
• infrastructural health diagnosis
• early-warning

Acknowledgements

Supported in part by National Key Basic Research Program of China (2015CB954103), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41601356), the Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Urban Land Resources Monitoring and Simulation, Ministry of Land and Resources and the AXA Research Fund. The authors are very grateful to Prof. Fabio Rocca, Prof. Richard Bamler, Prof. Limin Zhang, and Prof. Francis T.K. Au for their valuable suggestions and comments on the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the AXA Research Fund;National Key Basic Research Program of China [2015CB954103];National Natural Science Foundation of China [41601356]; the Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Urban Land Resources Monitoring and Simulation，Ministry of Land and Resources.