Courtesy Photo | Taylor Adams, senior geotechnical engineer. USACE St. Paul District photo by Wendy Wells... read more read more
Taylor Adams, senior geotechnical engineer along with the geotechnical and geology branch is at the forefront of using new technology to further the Corps of Engineers’ mission. “We’re working ahead of the game to increase our understanding of this new technology and how it can be beneficial in the future,” Adams said.
InSAR Adams first learned about Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, or InSAR, at a geotechnical, geology, and materials conference in 2022. Synthetic Aperture Radar is a type of remote sensing that uses satellites to bounce radar waves off the Earth’s surface and measures the radar waves that bounce back. This activity creates an image of that location at a single moment in time.
InSAR compares images taken at different times to detect changes in the surface. These images are independent of weather and can detect movement, such as landsides, structural settlements, and tectonic faults.
“This has been a learning experience,” Adams said. “This is out of my normal wheelhouse of soils and foundations.” He added that they have been in close contact with the geospatial information system section to look at applications for this technology.
This technology was used at Mosul Dam, in Iraq, between 2016 and 2019 to detect sinkholes. Ground truthing and subsurface boring was used to corroborate the results, Adams said. In this case, the satellite data was useful because it was dangerous to send out surveyors.
Application for the St. Paul District
Since the effort at Mosul Dam, there has been a desire within the Corps of Engineers to further investigate the use of InSAR to monitor critical infrastructure assets.
One of the things that Adams said he is looking into is the difference between free and paid data. In 2025, NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization will be launching a new satellite called NISAR, which will provide free data at a higher resolution than current free satellites.
Adams, along with his teammates, explored how the data could be used at the Corps-operated Baldhill Dam in North Dakota. Unfortunately, when examining the data, they found that the radar waves were not smoothly reflecting to the satellite for a clear image.
“There are factors like vegetation and snow cover that can be contributing factors to the decorrelation,” Adams said. “At Mosul Dam, it was a large, relatively dry site with little vegetation and large riprap slopes – so those results were much clearer.”
“There are certainly pros and cons to this new technology. We will continue to explore our options,” Adams said.
Next steps
The next steps include more training and collaboration. Adams has an eye on the Engineer Research and Development Center, where they are conducting research on modeling predicted results, or forward modeling.
“The team will also continue to provide training to others and look for other site candidates to test remote sensing technology,” Adams said.
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| Date Taken: | 02.26.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.26.2025 11:25 |
| Story ID: | 491556 |
| Location: | ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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