Artificial intelligence for climate-resilient infrastructure monitoring

Signs of advancing climate change can be felt all over the world. In Germany, climate change can be recognised by an increase in extreme weather events. The climatic changes can also put pressure on dams. Dams are subject to seasonal fluctuations due to changes in temperature and reservoir levels. Extreme heat could lead to greater deformation of the dams. As part of the BMWK joint project, KI4KI - Artificial Intelligence for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Monitoring, between the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Ruhrverband, an AI-based approach is to be combined with the Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) methodology in order to be able to assess the load on various infrastructures (dam structures and bridges) in the event of extreme weather events. In order to ensure that the Ruhrverband's dams to be monitored are also visible in the radar image, new types of instruments - electronic corner reflectors (ECR) - were installed on the walls and dams of the Möhne, Sorpe, Verse, Bigge and Lister dams. Their suitability for the sustainable satellite-based monitoring of infrastructures is to be tested on the basis of the accompanying, closely meshed trigonometric surveys carried out by the Ruhrverband. The scientific and technical measures should make it possible to carry out quasi-continuous monitoring of dams, ideally supplementing or perhaps even replacing current monitoring systems with a higher data density.