Landslide risk and monitoring system for conservation of Vardzia monastery, Georgia

The present paper reports preliminary results of a feasibility project developed in cooperation with National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia, aimed at envisaging the stability conditions of the slope-forming rocks of the Vardzia Monastery (rupestrian city cave in the south-western Georgia) and finalized to the implementation of a low impact monitoring systems together with long term mitigation/conservation policies. A field analysis was conducted to reconstruct geometry of the rock cliff, characteristics of discontinuities, main failure modes of potential unstable blocks, magnitude of phenomena and geom.-echanical parameters. Instability processes are the result of different combination of causative factors such as: lithology, frequency and orientation of discontinuities versus slope orientation, physical and mechanical characteristics of slope-forming materials, morphological and hydrological dynamics. The adoption of different survey techniques (e.g. 3D laser scanner, Ground Base Radar Interferometry) adopted together could be the best solution in the interdisciplinary field of Cultural Heritage preservation policies. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, London.