Studying and monitoring large landslides with persistent scatterer data

Abstract

This work is focused on very slow moving landslides and the new generation of Persistent Scatterers PSI (SqueeSAR™ processing, developed by Telerilevamento Europa) that allows to increase the density and the time series quality of interferometric data. The improvement in the time series quality helps also to understand the behaviour of some processes and to have a best comparison with traditional monitoring system and/or rainfall data. The consequent aim of the research is to evaluate the potential and the limitations of PSI data for large landslide studying and monitoring. Some large landslides belonging to different geological, geomorphologic and land-use contexts and with different monitoring systems, in Western and Ligurian Alps, Langhe Hills and a portion of Northern Apennines (Oltrepò Pavese), have been analyzed. The study area is covered by 18 years of SAR data, consisting on ERS (1992- 2001) and RADARSAT platform (2003-2010). The results show that the PSI analysis is useful both on regional and local scale. At regional scale PSI allows to improve landslide inventories. At local scale the PSI joined with other data can help in the understanding landslide features and kinematics.