Coastal Cliff Monitoring

Coastal landslides and cliff failures represent a significant hazard to local residents, workers and the 12 million people who visit Dorset’s coast each year. Cliff falls are a national problem which is worthy of research and development trials, as they are expensive and time consuming to monitor using traditional methods.

We expanded our project activities to monitor land stability and cliff movement at key points along the Jurassic Coast. In order to deliver this research we brought the British Geological Survey (BGS) into the project as a new partner who worked alongside Vodafone, Bournemouth University, Neutral Networks and Dorset Council. This research area deployed 5G connected NBIoT sensors to collect data, including acceleration and temperature, which was then processed and analysed in the cloud for interpretation by BGS experts.

This work complimented our Connected Coast and Future of Food research areas which also used 5G sensors and Edge computing for processing, and took the overall project value to £9 million.