# Internet of Things Geosensor Network for Cost-Effective Landslide Early Warning Systems
## 1 Project Overview Inform@Risk  
### Project Background and Goals  
Landslide hazard is increasing year by year due to more intense and frequent rainfall as a consequence of climate change [1]. Additionally, secondary causes such as wildfires play an important role in promoting landslides [2]. The poorest residents are often the most vulnerable to landslides because in many cases they live in the most dangerous areas [3, 4, 5, 6]. This is especially true in the Andes, where more than 10 million people are exposed to natural hazards and a high degree of inequality is prevalent [7, 8]. In Colombia, recent developments have led to an increased rural depopulation and migration into cities, leading to an exponential increase in landslide casualties in the last 50 years [9], with more than half a million families affected by landslides in the past 100 years [9, 10]. Rainfall is the most important triggering mechanism for these landslides, although human interference also is an important trigger [11, 12]. The research project Inform@Risk aims to strengthen the resilience of informal settlements against rainfall-induced landslides. Since long term risk reduction solutions, as, e.g., the relocation of the endangered inhabitants or the implementation of physical mitigation measures, are currently not feasible due to the high social, political and monetary efforts required and their potential to harm the landscape and ecosystem [13], the Inform@Riskproject is designing and implementing a Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) as a short- to medium-term risk reduction solution. In order to ensure the successful implementation of such a system, many different technical and social challenges have to be overcome. The main challenges are the design of a cost-effective, reliable and spatially and temporally highly resolved monitoring system and its social integration into the informal settlement where it is implemented. The system can not succeed if it is not supported and trusted by the local residents it is designed for. Adequate risk perception and knowledge of the population is another important factor that determines whether the system can make a lasting impact [14]. Overall, the system needs to address the following points to be successful. It needs to be:  
1. Socially integrated;
2. Spatially integrated;
3. Multiscalar;
4. Multisectoral;
5. Precise;
6. Inexpensive;
7. Easily replicable. This requires intensive interdisciplinary cooperation between scientists, governmental and social institutions as well as the local communities. Therefore, a \"living lab\" approach is pursued, in which all measures, from geological investigations and the layout of the early warning system to the testing and training phase, are intensively discussed and consulted with the local residents. To address this, the German team of the Inform@Risk project includes landscape architects (Leibniz University Hannover, LUH), geologists (Technical University of Munich, TUM), geotechnical instrumentation experts (AlpGeorisk, AGR), remote sensing experts (German Aerospace Center Oberpfaffenhofen, DLR and Expert Office for Aerial Image Evaluation and Environmental Issues, SLU), and software developers (Technical University Deggendorf, THD). The Colombian team is comprised of representatives from the center of urban studies (EAFIT university, Medellin) and several municipal agencies responsible for risk management in the city of Medellin (e.g., SIATA, DAGRD) as well as two local NGOs and the Colombian Geological Society. In the following, after shortly introducing the study area, the technical design of the proposed LEWS is presented, focusing on the newly developed wireless geosensor network. Other essential elements of the research project, for example the landslide hazard and risk assessment and the social work are only covered superficially and will be published in detail elsewhere.