Pier scour monitoring system by bed-level image tracking

A scour monitoring system with a micro camera tracking the bed-level images is proposed in this study. Two image recognition algorithms have been developed to support the bed-level image tracking approach. Through the laboratory experiments of pier scour, this study demonstrates that the proposed system is able to accurately monitor the scour-depth evolution in real time. In addition, five commonly-used temporal scour models are employed to simulate scour-depth evolution and their results are compared with monitoring data. In general, the results indicate that the proposed scour monitoring system has the potential for further applications in the field.