Remedial Aerial Management

Sinkholes share similar challenges and outcomes in terms of loss of life, cost and damage to infrastructure and community as other natural disasters do.

Where they destroy communities, particularly in LED Countries, there may be a struggle to financially rebuild, whereby there is a reliance on international support and contributions to provide the initial response to protect life, health and critical infrastructure and for their long term recovery.

Growing populations and urbanisations add to this global challenge so developing a preventative solution is the best approach to protect our communities.

Sinkhole prevalence has significantly increased alongside urbanisation and business growth due to anthropogenic activities such as the installation of infrastructure in active Karst landscapes e.g. Water networks. 

They can cause extensive and costly damage to transportation and infrastructure networks, which is said to have been linked to leakages in buried pipelines as as sinkholes have no natural surface drainage, they are most vulnerable to failing water distribution networks.

In the UK, the current water system is failing. Roughly 3 billion litres of water are lost daily through leaks in the pipe network and globally a further 90 billion litres are lost a day. 

Today, only 1/3rd of our traditional pipe network has been replaced from Victorian metal pipes to modern PVC but these are equally susceptible to leakage at the joints, and have a shorter shelf life requiring more frequent replacement every 24-50 years.

1. There is a lack of tacit knowledge from professionals in understanding where and what sort of infrastructure lies beneath the surface and the topography of the land it sits in.
2. Due to the depth in which infrastructure is installed, there is a lack of feedback to enable the user to understand when pipes need replacing. The only indication is surface level deformation, in which case it may already be too late to resolve.
3. There is a large element of human error in inadequately installing and managing these networks.
4. A layman cannot understand the complexities of the land or pipework system unless they are a geophysical engineer so there is a lack of affordance in regards to identifying the signs of pipe failure in time.

A better and more comprehensive system needs to be in place to make sense of what sits beneath the surface and how to identify subsidence as and when it forms due to aged and enlarged infrastructure.

 To define the common cause of sinkhole occurrence in urbanised areas and 

from that develop an airborne solution that topographically scans the Earth in 

real time, gathering subsidence data into concise reports. This is so 

geophysical engineers can hone in on vulnerable karst sites where 

infrastructure is compromised in order to: ensure the safe evacuation of 

communities, identify where future construction should be avoided such as 

HS2 rail lines (Devlin, L, Kier, M 2024) and primarily excavate and fill these 

sunken voids before greater economical, societal and physiological damage 

occurs