Mestiachala Georgia
The Geohazard Early Warning System for the HPP Mestiachala is based on an updated geohazard assessment, combining geological risk evaluation with continuous monitoring across five stations in the Chalati, Murkvami and Lekhziri valleys.
Problem Statement
The HPP Mestiachala hydropower plant sits within a high-alpine catchment across the Chalati, Murkvami and Lekhziri valleys in Georgia’s Greater Caucasus — terrain regularly affected by rockfall, debris movement and rapid changes in river discharge. Before the Early Warning System was installed, these hazards could not be detected or communicated in time to protect the plant’s infrastructure and the personnel working across its remote, difficult-to-access catchment area.
Solution
AlpGeotech’s engineering team, led by Dr. John Singer, designed, installed and maintains a fully integrated Early Warning System (EWS) across the project’s catchment. Four Gateway stations (Intake 1, Intake 2, Chalati and Murkvami) form the communication backbone, relaying data from five monitoring stations — two Rockfall Monitoring Stations equipped with geophones, and three Discharge Monitoring Stations combining radar water-level sensors with geophones — back to a central server.
At the core of every station is AlpGeotech’s own InformRisk module, a compact dual-radio LoRa device developed in-house that keeps stations communicating even where no internet or cellular coverage exists. All stations run on solar power, with the Chalati and Murkvami Gateways additionally backed by hydrogen fuel cells for uninterrupted operation through periods of low sunlight.
Data — including real-time seismic amplitude from the geophones, discharge and water level from the radar sensors, and full station health telemetry — is validated, processed and visualized on AlpGeotech’s own monitoring server, giving engineers continuous situational awareness and enabling rapid, informed decisions to protect both the hydropower plant and the people working on site.
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Other Projects
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The I@R system monitors three high-alpine valleys in the Greater Caucasus using radar and geophone sensors and, in the event of an emergency, initiates an evacuation via traffic lights, sirens, and SMS/email alerts.
Rockfall Monitoring at Hochvogel
In collaboration with the Technical University of Munich, AlpGeotech is conducting research at Hochvogel to develop the most accurate possible detection of rockfalls, which often serve as precursors to larger rockfall events.
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The early-warning system installed by AlpGeotech in Medellín, Colombia, issued warnings about local, rainfall-induced landslides that threatened informal settlements.
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During the renovation of Munich Central Station and the tunneling of the second main line, AlpGeotech is monitoring deformations in the roof structure using approximately 50 measurement nodes and automatically triggers an alarm in case of an emergency.
S177 Wuenschendorf-Eschdorf
AlpGeotech is monitoring ground settlement during the construction of the new Wünschendorf-Eschdorf bypass. This allowed the team to identify a progressive ground failure at an early stage and take corrective action.