Spatiotemporal characteristics of ground microtremor in advance of rockfalls

Identifying cliffs that are prone to fall and providing a sufficient lead time for rockfall warning are crucial steps in disaster risk reduction and preventive maintenance work, especially that led by local governments. However, existing rockfall warning systems provide uncertain rockfall location forecasting and short warning times because the deformation and cracking of unstable slopes are not sufficiently detected by sensors before the rock collapses. Here, we introduce ground microtremor signals for early rockfall forecasting and demonstrate that microtremor characteristics can be used to detect unstable rock wedges on slopes, quantitatively describe the stability of slopes and lengthen the lead time for rockfall warning. We show that the change in the energy of ground microtremors can be an early precursor of rockfall and that the signal frequency decreases with slope instability. This finding indicates that ground microtremor signals are remarkably sensitive to slope stability. We conclude that microtremor characteristics can be used as an appropriate slope stability index for early rockfall warning systems and predicting the spatiotemporal characteristics of rockfall hazards. This early warning method has the advantages of providing a long lead time and on-demand monitoring, while increasing slope stability accessibility and prefailure location detectability.