Remote sensing techniques to assess badlands dynamics: insights from a systematic review

Badlands are typical landforms that develop on unconsolidated sediments or poorly consolidated bedrock, with bare or sparse vegetation, generally characterized by high rates of erosion. These landscapes are vulnerable to dynamic changes driven by natural processes such as rainfall and tectonic processes, as well as anthropogenic factors including deforestation and land reclamation. The evolution of their interaction significantly influences resource management, particularly soil and water, and informs sustainable land-use planning strategies. Monitoring and analyzing badlands dynamics is crucial for understanding their downstream effects and mitigating natural and environmental hazards such as landslides, debris flows, piping and sediment delivery to rivers. Remote sensing (RS) technologies, from ground- to satellite-based, have emerged as valuable tools for assessing these processes due to their ability to provide data at high spatial and/or temporal resolutions over complex terrains. This article provides a systematic overview of recent advancements in RS techniques applied to badlands, highlighting their respective contributions across various environmental contexts. Starting from 516 papers retrieved from Web of Science and Scopus databases, the review synthesizes the main findings of 96 peer-reviewed studies selected by the use of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) process. The majority of these studies (59%) were conducted in Europe, with significant contributions from Italy, Spain and France. Ground-based methods like Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) remain invaluable for site-specific studies that focus on fine-scale processes such as rill formation and micro-landslides, while airborne laser scanning and aerial photography and photogrammetry, offer broader spatial coverage, facilitating the creation of geomorphological maps and the analysis of large-scale erosional features. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), emerging since 2011, have bridged the gap between ground precision field studies and aerial scalability, becoming essential for 3D mapping and erosion monitoring in inaccessible terrain. Satellite imagery is a leading tool due to its extensive spatial and temporal coverage, enhancing land-use change monitoring and erosion modeling capabilities. The study also emphasizes the importance of well-known tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to support the analysis of data and the creation of thematic maps (e.g. erosion susceptibility, land use/land cover, geotourism), while also recognizing the increasing role of Machine Learning (ML) in handling large and complex datasets, identifying hidden patterns, and supporting predictive analyses in environmental research. By providing a structured comparison of RS approaches in relation to their spatial scale, resolution, and applicability, this study contributes to a better understanding of their potential and limitations in badlands research, and offers a useful reference for designing future monitoring strategies

Global approaches and local strategies for phase unwrapping

Phase unwrapping, i.e. the retrieval of absolute phases from wrapped, noisy measures, is a tough problem because of the presence of rotational inconsistencies (residues), randomly generated by noise and undersampling on the principal phase gradient field. These inconsistencies prevent the recovery of the absolute phase field by direct integration of the wrapped gradients. In this paper we examine the relative merit of known global approaches and then we present evidence that our approach based on “stochastic annealing” can recover the true phase field also in noisy areas with severe undersampling, where other methods fail. Then, some experiments with local approaches are presented. A fast neural filter has been trained to eliminate close residue couples by joining them in a way which takes into account the local phase information. Performances are about 60–70% of the residues. Finally, other experiments have been aimed at designing an automated method for the determination of weight matrices to use in conjunction with local phase unwrapping algorithms. The method, tested with the minimum cost flow algorithm, gives good performances over both simulated and real data

SIR-C/X-SAR data calibration and ground truth campaign over the NASA-CB1 test-site

During the Space Shuttle Endeavour mission in October 1994, a remote-sensing campaign was carried out with the objectives of both radiometric and polarimetric calibration and ground truth data acquisition of bare soils. This paper presents the results obtained in the experiment. Polarimetric cross-talk and channel imbalance values, as well as radiometric calibration parameters, have been found to be within the science requirements for SAR images. Regarding ground truth measurements, a wide spread in the height rms values and correlation lengths has been observed, which has motivated a critical revisiting of surface parameters descriptors

How do cardiologists select patients for dual antiplatelet therapy continuation beyond 1 year after a myocardial infarction? Insights from the EYESHOT Post-MI Study

Background: Current guidelines suggest to consider dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) continuation for longer than 12 months in selected patients with myocardial infarction (MI). Hypothesis: We sought to assess the criteria used by cardiologists in daily practice to select patients with a history of MI eligible for DAPT continuation beyond 1 year. Methods: We analyzed data from the EYESHOT Post-MI, a prospective, observational, nationwide study aimed to evaluate the management of patients presenting to cardiologists 1 to 3 years from the last MI event. Results: Out of the 1633 post-MI patients enrolled in the study between March and December 2017, 557 (34.1%) were on DAPT at the time of enrolment, and 450 (27.6%) were prescribed DAPT after cardiologist assessment. At multivariate analyses, a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with multiple stents and the presence of peripheral artery disease (PAD) resulted as independent predictors of DAPT continuation, while atrial fibrillation was the only independent predictor of DAPT interruption for patients both at the second and the third year from MI at enrolment and the time of discharge/end of the visit. Conclusions: Risk scores recommended by current guidelines for guiding decisions on DAPT duration are underused and misused in clinical practice. A PCI with multiple stents and a history of PAD resulted as the clinical variables more frequently associated with DAPT continuation beyond 1 year from the index MI