Satellite SAR Remote Sensing in Nasca

In 2012, a research project initiated at the British Geological Survey used space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery to investigate the environmental changes affecting the drainage basin of Rio Grande and its tributaries, in Southern Peru. Our research has provided evidence of the effects due to natural and anthropogenic processes on the cultural landscape where the Nasca Civilization flourished centuries ago. This chapter provides an overview of the new insights brought by satellite SAR technology to the understanding of land use and changes in the fertile river valleys, condition of local water resources, and archaeological heritage. Impacts of this research are discussed in relation to the rejuvenation of the water supply system and preservation of cultural identity

Prothego : WP2 : harmonisation of PS data, and creation of digital factsheets : deliverable : D.02.01 : available satellite InSAR data for the European WHL sites

PROTHEGO (PROTection of European Cultural HEritage from GeO-hazards) is a collaborative research project funded in 2015–2018 in the framework of the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI-CH) – Heritage Plus. The project aims to make an innovative contribution towards the analysis of geohazards in areas of cultural heritage, and uses novel space technology based on Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) to retrieve information on ground stability and motion in the UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) monuments and sites of Europe. This report introduces PROTHEGO’s Work Package (WP) 2: Harmonisation of available PS data, and creation of digital factsheets, led by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) – British Geological Survey (BGS) and aimed to define, catalogue and assess the availability of satellite-derived ground motion information from multi-temporal InSAR and Persistent Scatterers (PS) techniques for the UNESCO WHL sites of Europe. WP2 consists of two main tasks: 2.1 – Analysis of satellite InSAR and PS datasets available at European scale; and 2.2 – Harmonisation of InSAR and PS ground motion information and creation of digital factsheets. Their goal is to generate a GIS catalogue of the available satellite InSAR data for the UNESCO WHL sites of Europe, and digital factsheets summarising the observed ground motion velocities and deformation histories of the PS reflectors within each WHL site, alongside two technical reports. This is the first report describing the methodology adopted for, and results obtained from, the analysis of the availability of ground motion information for the WHL sites of Europe (i.e. Task 2.1). This information is based on InSAR processing of satellite radar imagery that was carried out in the framework of ongoing or recent European, national and/or research projects (such as ESA-GMES Terrafirma, and the Italian Extraordinary Plan of Environmental Remote Sensing EPRS-E), as well as those available through published literature (e.g., scientific papers, project reports). Information on data availability for the WHL sites was recorded in an ad hoc catalogue, together with metadata on the retrieved ground stability and motion datasets (e.g., data source, satellite and sensor, monitoring period, acquisition mode). The analysis allowed the delineation of a general overview of the coverage of InSAR datasets for the UNESCO sites at European scale, as well as the identification of data coverage gaps. The results reveal that, as of the end of 2016, 147 sites (i.e. 37% of the analysed 399 sites of PROTHEGO) are covered by existing datasets and/or published literature, whereas there is a data coverage gap for 252 sites (i.e. 63%). Therefore InSAR information can or may be accessible to study geohazards in more than one-third of the total European UNESCO sites. It is to be noted, however, that in addition to the datasets and literature found so far, many other unpublished studies may exist, as well as other digital datasets that could be made available to PROTHEGO via other projects, suggesting that even more sites than the 37% figure provided in this report may be already covered

Satellite X-band SAR data exploitation trends in the framework of ASI's COSMO-SkyMed Open Call initiative

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Understanding the implementation challenges of urban resilience policies : investigating the influence of urban geological risk in Thessaloniki, Greece

Urban Resilience has recently emerged as a systematic approach to urban sustainability. The malleable definition of resilience has rendered its operationalisation an intriguing task for contemporary cities trying to address their organisational problems and confront uncertainty in a holistic manner. In this article we investigate the implementation challenges emerging for Resilient Strategies by the inattention paid to urban geological risk. We conceptualise urban geological risk as the combination of urban geohazards, geological vulnerability and exposure of the built environment and focus on the case study of Thessaloniki, Greece, a city that joined the 100 Resilient Cities initiative in 2014 and published its “Resilience Strategy 2030” (RS) in 2017. After a review of the RS, historical records of natural hazard events and with evidence gathered through interviews with city officials, we emphasize on earthquakes and surface flooding as the most relevant geohazards for Thessaloniki to tackle in its journey towards urban resilience. First, we examine geological vulnerability to earthquakes in conjunction with exposure of the built environment, as an outcome of ageing building stock, high building densities and the urban configuration, in Acheiropoietos neighbourhood, within the historic centre of the city. Then, we explore geological risk to surface flooding in Perea, in Thermaikos Municipality, with a particular focus on flash floods, by demonstrating how limited consideration of local geomorphology as well as semi-regulated urban expansion and its limited connection with emergency planning increase exposure of the built environment to surface flooding. Finally, we come up with the major implementation challenges Thessaloniki’s RS faces with regard to urban geohazards

Terrestrial laser scanning for rockfall stability analysis in the cultural heritage site of Pitigliano (Italy)

Traditional surveying methods are often not sufficient to achieve a complete geomechanical characterization of the rock mass, to analyze the instability mechanisms threatening the cultural heritage of hilltop historic towns. In Pitigliano (Tuscany, Central Italy), terrestrial laser scanning was employed complementarily to conventional geomechanical techniques. The overall 3D survey of the exposed surfaces was combined with scanlines of the inner walls of the subterranean cavities running underneath the historic centre. The rock mass discontinuities geometry was extracted, and the most critical instability mechanisms were mapped, with particular interest in the potential impacts on the ancient buildings located along the cliff edge. The geomechanical analysis of the surveyed joint sets confirmed a structural control on the cliff morphology by two main joint sets. Thanks to the laser scanner-based kinematic analysis, flexural toppling and wedge failure were found as the main hazardous instability mechanisms in Pitigliano. Finally, the conservation criticalities were identified and a pilot monitoring system was installed in a sector highly susceptible to block detachment

MAPPING COASTAL AND WETLAND VEGETATION COMMUNITIES USING MULTI-TEMPORAL SENTINEL-2 DATA

Abstract. Operational monitoring of complex vegetation communities, such as the ones growing in coastal and wetland areas, can be effectively supported by satellite remote sensing, providing quantitative spatialized information on vegetation parameters, as well as on their temporal evolution. With this work, we explored and evaluated the potential of Sentinel-2 data for assessing the status and evolution of coastal vegetation as the primary indicator of ecosystem conditions, by mapping the different plant communities of Venice lagoon (Northeast Italy) via a rule-based classification approach exploiting synoptic seasonal features of spectral indices and multispectral reflectance. The results demonstrated that coastal and wetland vegetation community type maps derived for two different years scored a good overall accuracy around 80%, with some misclassification in the coastal areas and overestimation of salt marsh communities coverage, and that virtual collaborative environments can facilitate the use of Sentinel-2 data and products to multidisciplinary users

COSMO-SKYMED: A SATELLITE TOOL FOR MONITORING CULTURAL HERITAGE

COSMO-SkyMed is the flagship Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite constellation of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) that, among the many civilian applications for which it was originally conceived, is nowadays successfully exploited for cultural heritage applications. Current capabilities offered by both the First and Second Generations satellites are reviewed in light of the experience undertaken by ASI through data exploitation initiatives with scientific and commercial users, and more importantly in the framework of institutional projects and cooperation agreements such as those with the Colosseum Archaeological Park and the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC). The interferometric nature of COSMO-SkyMed SAR acquisitions is the key feature exploited in structural and ground deformation monitoring of monuments and historical buildings, so as the constellation is currently the essential Earth Observation asset supporting MiC’s Extraordinary Plan of Monitoring and Conservation of Immovable Cultural Heritage. Further applications that could be enabled by COSMO-SkyMed data are explored through internal ASI research activity, such as the use of high resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEM) for topographic surveying of archaeological tells and condition assessment to estimate the impact due to natural and anthropogenic threats (e.g. looting, agriculture, destruction). Finally, current perspectives towards operational use and greater user uptake of COSMO-SkyMed for purposes of scientific downstream are opened by the new ASI programme Innovation for Downstream Preparation for Science (I4DP_SCIENCE)

QGIS AND OPEN DATA CUBE APPLICATIONS FOR LOCAL CLIMATE ZONES ANALYSIS LEVERAGING PRISMA HYPERSPECTRAL SATELLITE DATA

Climate change poses a significant threat to humans and biodiversity, impacting various aspects of livelihoods, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Understanding climate change and its interaction with the environment is crucial for achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Local Climate Zones (LCZ) play a key role in comprehending climate change by categorizing urban areas also based on their thermal characteristics. This study presents prototype open-source software tools developed to integrate ground and satellite data for LCZ analysis in the Metropolitan City of Milan (Northern Italy). These tools consist of a QGIS plugin to access and preprocess ground-based meteorological sensor data and a client-server platform, based on the Open Data Cube and Docker technologies, for the exploitation of multispectral and hyperspectral satellite data in LCZ mapping and analysis. The tools’ architecture, data retrieval methods, and analysis capabilities are described in detail. The QGIS plugin facilitates the access and preprocessing of ground-based sensor data within the user-friendly QGIS environment. The platform enables seamless ground-sensor and satellite data management and analysis, using Jupyter Notebooks as an interface to support programmatic operations on the data. The proposed tools provide a framework for studying climate change and its local impacts on urban environments, with the potential of empowering users to effectively analyze and mitigate its effects

Interdisciplinary approaches based on imaging radar enable cutting-edge cultural heritage applications

: By analysing the technical advantages and characteristics of imaging radar in cultural heritage, we provide new insights for the future development of cutting-edge Digital Heritage approaches through technical integration and interdisciplinary synergy

Accounting for groundwater in future city visions

City planners, urban innovators and researchers are increasingly working on ‘future city’ initiatives to investigate the physical, social and political aspects of harmonized urban living. Despite this, sustainability principles and the importance of urban groundwater are lacking in future city visions. Using London as a case study, the importance of groundwater for cities is highlighted and a range of future city interventions may impact on groundwater are reviewed. Using data from water resource plans and city planning strategies, changes in the groundwater balance which may occur as a result of city interventions are calculated for two future city scenarios: a ‘strategic’ future informed by organisational policy and an ‘aspirational’ future guided by sustainability principles. For London, under a strategic future, preferential investment in industry-scale technologies such as wastewater treatment and groundwater storage would occur. Acknowledgement that behaviour change offers the potential for a faster rate of transformation than innovation technologies is ignored. The capacity of community-led action and smart-home technologies to deliver sustainable water use under an aspirational future is evident, with a measurable impact on urban groundwater. These methods may be used to inform city interventions that consider the social context in addition to environmental constraints and business drivers