Railway deformation detected by DInSAR over active sinkholes in the Ebro Valley evaporite karst, Spain

Subsidence was measured for the first time on railway tracks in the central sector of Ebro Valley (NE Spain) using Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) techniques. This area is affected by evaporite karst and the analysed railway corridors traverse active sinkholes that produce deformations in these infrastructures. One of the railway tracks affected by slight settlements is the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line, a form of transport infrastructure highly vulnerable to ground deformation processes. Our analysis based on DInSAR measurements and geomorphological surveys indicates that this line shows dissolution-induced subsidence and compaction of anthropogenic deposits (infills and embankments). Significant sinkhole-related subsidence was also measured by DInSAR techniques on the Castejón-Zaragoza conventional railway line. This study demonstrates that DInSAR velocity maps, coupled with detailed geomorphological surveys, may help in the identification of the railway track sections that are affected by active subsidence

Urban Deformation Monitoring using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry and SAR tomography

This book focuses on remote sensing for urban deformation monitoring. In particular, it highlights how deformation monitoring in urban areas can be carried out using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Tomography (TomoSAR). Several contributions show the capabilities of Interferometric SAR (InSAR) and PSI techniques for urban deformation monitoring. Some of them show the advantages of TomoSAR in un-mixing multiple scatterers for urban mapping and monitoring. This book is dedicated to the technical and scientific community interested in urban applications. It is useful for choosing the appropriate technique and gaining an assessment of the expected performance. The book will also be useful to researchers, as it provides information on the state-of-the-art and new trends in this fiel

Analisi di dati DInSAR in aree urbane affette da subsidenza o frane a cinematica lenta

2012 - 2013Subsidence and slow-moving landslides systematically cause social, economic and environmental impacts all over the world. For this reason studies aimed at both the characterization of subsidence and slow-moving landslides and the analysis of the consequences on the exposed elements interacting with them are of great interest for the scientific and the technical community. These studies, to be useful in land use planning and management, need a huge number of displacement measurements within and on the boundary of the affected areas. Recently the scientific community has shownan increasing interest in the potential of using satellite observation techniques and, in particular, interferometric methods of Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR)image processing. The literature review on DInSAR applications highlights the possibility of further researches pursuing the exploitation of DInSAR potentiality in studies at different scales and the development of procedures for the proper use of interferometric data and their validation with reference to well documented case studies. To this end, this PhD Thesis is aimed at developing original procedures for the analysis of the interferometric measurements specifically devotedto pursue two main objectives: the characterization of the phenomena of interest and the prediction of consequences to buildings interacting with them. The conceived procedures were tested, in sample areas of the Campania region (southern Italy)following a multi-scale approach. With reference to subsidence phenomena, the studies at small-scale involved the entire region and were mainly aimedatdetecting subsiding macro-areas; within these latter, more detailed studies at medium scale were carried out and the most affected municipalities were individuated. At large scale,focusing on one of these municipalities, studies dealing with the analysis of parameters whose variation leadsto the generation of the damage were carried out. Finally, at the scale of the single building the interferometric data were interpretedaccording todamageability criteria adopted in engineering practice. As forslow-moving landslides, the joint use of interferometric measurements and damage surveysallowed the updating of landslide inventory maps at medium scale and the analysis of the consequencesthrough the generation of fragility and vulnerability curves within a test area including 21 municipalities of BeneventoProvince. At large-scale studies were performed on a landslide-affected area within the municipality of Ascea(Salerno Province) in order to follow the evolution - in space and time - of the analyzed phenomenon as well as to deepen its kinematic behavior, in turn useful for zoning purposes. The obtained results highlight that the conceived procedures can valuably integrate the current practice for land use planning and as well as for the selection of the most suitablemanagement strategy.XII n.s

Remote Sensing for Landslide Investigations: An Overview of Recent Achievements and Perspectives

Landslides represent major natural hazards, which cause every year significant loss of lives and damages to buildings, properties and lifelines. In the last decades, a significant increase in landslide frequency took place, in concomitance to climate change and the expansion of urbanized areas. Remote sensing techniques represent a powerful tool for landslide investigation: applications are traditionally divided into three main classes, although this subdivision has some limitations and borders are sometimes fuzzy. The first class comprehends techniques for landslide recognition, i.e., the mapping of past or active slope failures. The second regards landslide monitoring, which entails both ground deformation measurement and the analysis of any other changes along time (e.g., land use, vegetation cover). The third class groups methods for landslide hazard analysis and forecasting. The aim of this paper is to give an overview on the applications of remote-sensing techniques for the three categories of landslide investigations, focusing on the achievements of the last decade, being that previous studies have already been exhaustively reviewed in the existing literature. At the end of the paper, a new classification of remote-sensing techniques that may be pertinently adopted for investigating specific typologies of soil and rock slope failures is proposed

Elevation and Deformation Extraction from TomoSAR

3D SAR tomography (TomoSAR) and 4D SAR differential tomography (Diff-TomoSAR) exploit multi-baseline SAR data stacks to provide an essential innovation of SAR Interferometry for many applications, sensing complex scenes with multiple scatterers mapped into the same SAR pixel cell. However, these are still influenced by DEM uncertainty, temporal decorrelation, orbital, tropospheric and ionospheric phase distortion and height blurring. In this thesis, these techniques are explored. As part of this exploration, the systematic procedures for DEM generation, DEM quality assessment, DEM quality improvement and DEM applications are first studied. Besides, this thesis focuses on the whole cycle of systematic methods for 3D & 4D TomoSAR imaging for height and deformation retrieval, from the problem formation phase, through the development of methods to testing on real SAR data. After DEM generation introduction from spaceborne bistatic InSAR (TanDEM-X) and airborne photogrammetry (Bluesky), a new DEM co-registration method with line feature validation (river network line, ridgeline, valley line, crater boundary feature and so on) is developed and demonstrated to assist the study of a wide area DEM data quality. This DEM co-registration method aligns two DEMs irrespective of the linear distortion model, which improves the quality of DEM vertical comparison accuracy significantly and is suitable and helpful for DEM quality assessment. A systematic TomoSAR algorithm and method have been established, tested, analysed and demonstrated for various applications (urban buildings, bridges, dams) to achieve better 3D & 4D tomographic SAR imaging results. These include applying Cosmo-Skymed X band single-polarisation data over the Zipingpu dam, Dujiangyan, Sichuan, China, to map topography; and using ALOS L band data in the San Francisco Bay region to map urban building and bridge. A new ionospheric correction method based on the tile method employing IGS TEC data, a split-spectrum and an ionospheric model via least squares are developed to correct ionospheric distortion to improve the accuracy of 3D & 4D tomographic SAR imaging. Meanwhile, a pixel by pixel orbit baseline estimation method is developed to address the research gaps of baseline estimation for 3D & 4D spaceborne SAR tomography imaging. Moreover, a SAR tomography imaging algorithm and a differential tomography four-dimensional SAR imaging algorithm based on compressive sensing, SAR interferometry phase (InSAR) calibration reference to DEM with DEM error correction, a new phase error calibration and compensation algorithm, based on PS, SVD, PGA, weighted least squares and minimum entropy, are developed to obtain accurate 3D & 4D tomographic SAR imaging results. The new baseline estimation method and consequent TomoSAR processing results showed that an accurate baseline estimation is essential to build up the TomoSAR model. After baseline estimation, phase calibration experiments (via FFT and Capon method) indicate that a phase calibration step is indispensable for TomoSAR imaging, which eventually influences the inversion results. A super-resolution reconstruction CS based study demonstrates X band data with the CS method does not fit for forest reconstruction but works for reconstruction of large civil engineering structures such as dams and urban buildings. Meanwhile, the L band data with FFT, Capon and the CS method are shown to work for the reconstruction of large manmade structures (such as bridges) and urban buildings

Urban Hydrogeology Studies

Urbanization worldwide is a pervasive phenomenon of our time, and sustainable urban development is one of the greatest challenges faced by the contemporary world. The subsurface plays a range of roles in such developments through the complex processes of urbanization, including building development, constructing roads, and providing water supplies, drainage, sanitation, and even solid waste disposal.Urban groundwater problems are usually predictable; however, they are not predicted early enough. During recent decades, progressive advances in the scientific understanding of urban hydrogeological processes and the groundwater regimes of a substantial number of cities have been documented. This extensive array of subsurface challenges that cities have to contend with lies at the core of the sustainability of the urban water cycle. This is threatened by the increasing scale and downward extent of urban subsurface construction, including utilities (cables, sewage, and drainage), transportation (tunnels, passages), and storage (cellars, parking lots, and thermal energy). The cumulative impact of this subsurface congestion on the surrounding geology, and especially on the groundwater system, has to be constantly studied and addressed.In this volume, key connections amongst urban hydrogeology activities are identified as being consistent with scientific results and good practices in their relationship to subsurface data and knowledge on subsurface systems. The volume supports a useful dialogue between the providers and consumers of urban groundwater data and knowledge, offering new perspectives on the existing research themes

Advances in Remote Sensing-based Disaster Monitoring and Assessment

Remote sensing data and techniques have been widely used for disaster monitoring and assessment. In particular, recent advances in sensor technologies and artificial intelligence-based modeling are very promising for disaster monitoring and readying responses aimed at reducing the damage caused by disasters. This book contains eleven scientific papers that have studied novel approaches applied to a range of natural disasters such as forest fire, urban land subsidence, flood, and tropical cyclones

Progress in Landslide Research and Technology, Volume 1 Issue 1, 2022

This open access book provides an overview of the progress in landslide research and technology and is part of a book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). The book provides a common platform for the publication of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit for the society contributing to the Kyoto Landslide Commitment 2020, which is expected to continue up to 2030 and even beyond to globally promote the understanding and reduction of landslide disaster risk, as well as to address the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals

Progress in Landslide Research and Technology, Volume 1 Issue 2, 2022

This open access book provides an overview of the progress in landslide research and technology and is part of a book series of the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). It gives an overview of recent progress in landslide research and technology for practical applications and the benefit for the society contributing to understanding and reducing landslide disaster risk