Levee Breach Detection
Over 1,600 Miles of Levees in California
On February 24, 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared the State's over 1,600 mile levee system a state of emergency. The current solution to test the structure is to drill bore holes - a solution too costly and inefficient for this large number of miles.
The Bay-Delta system provides drinking water for 22 million people and supports California's trillion-dollar economy including California's $27 billion agricultural industry. Its levees protect farms, homes and infrastructure and serves 80% of the state's commercial salmon fisheries.
"The land is below water level, sometimes as much as 20 feet below, a levee break can bring catastrophe." U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
Airborne GPSAR: A Comprehensive Way to Inspect Levee Infrastructure
Given Mirage’s success at finding and characterizing underground anomalies, in 2008 the company intends to pursue opportunities to validate the use of Airborne GPSAR in the detection of subsurface levee damage. Baseline SAR images are taken by fly-over survey of an entire levee system. Then on a regular basis additional surveys would generate SAR images for comparison to archived images of levee infrastructure. With early detection, a potential breach can be identified and repaired before an environmental disaster happens.
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