Slope ALARMS: Flood embankment
South Ferriby, Humber, UK

The UK Environment Agency (EA) has employed a Slope ALARMS sensor to monitor the stability of a flood defence on the south side of the Humber Estuary.

Rapid erosion of the Humber channel was threatening the integrity of a critical flood embankment that protected houses and businesses in the village of South Ferriby.

Continuous monitoring of acoustic emission was carried out from September 2016 to December 2019.

A daily health message (SMS) was produced with the potential for an early warning alarm SMS generated if a pre-determined threshold linked to slope deformation rates was exceeded.

These were automatically sent to the area Flood Incident Duty Officer (FIDO) to implement the EA emergency response as detailed in the FIDO Procedures Document prepared by the Response Coordinator for Operations in Lincolnshire and Northampton area.

Progress and impact

Construction of a new flood embankment further inland was completed in late 2019 and this has removed the need for monitoring of the old embankment.