Displacement patterns of a landslide affected by human activities: insights from ground-based InSAR monitoring

Abstract

Landslides interacting with large infrastructures represent a major problem for the economy, society as a whole, and the safety of workers. Continuous monitoring for 23 months using an integrated platform with a ground-based SAR interferometer (GB-InSAR), a weather station, and an automatic camera gave us the opportunity to analyze the response of an unstable slope to the different phases of work. The deformational behavior of both the natural slope and the man-made structures was recorded and interpreted in relation to the working stages and the rainfall conditions during the whole monitoring period. A typical pattern of displacement was identified for shallow landslides, debris produced by the excavation and gabions, metallic walls, and anchored bulkheads. Furthermore, insights into the dynamics and behavior of the slope and the man-made structures that interact with the landslide were obtained. Extreme rainfall is the main trigger of shallow landslides and gabion deformations, while anchored bulkheads are less influenced by rainfalls. Movement of debris that is produced by excavations and temporary metallic barrier deformation are closely related to each other. The herein proposed monitoring platform is very efficient in monitoring unstable slopes that are affected by human activities. Moreover, the recorded patterns of displacement in the slope and the man-made structures can be used as reference data for similar studies and engineering designs

New insights into the temporal prediction of landslides by a terrestrial SAR interferometry monitoring case study

“…This value ranges between 0 and 1, where 0 is the complete decorrelation of the phase and 1 is the complete correlation (Hanssen 2001). Hence, multitemporal analysis allows LOS displacement time histories of each pixel of the image to be obtained (Bozzano et al 2011).…”

“…The study area The field experiment presented herein concerns a slope affected by a major deep-seated landslide characterized by a very complex geological and geomorphological setting (Bozzano et al 2008(Bozzano et al , 2011. Due to the development of a major communication road, the slope has been extensively investigated since 2007 and controlled for more than 4 years by an integrated monitoring platform composed of traditional sensors (inclinometers, piezometers, load cells, and topographic measures) and a remote station equipped with an IBIS-L terrestrial SAR interferometer, by IDS S.p.A (Table 1), a weather station, and an automatic camera.…”

“…The remote monitoring network has been active 24/7 from November 2007 until now. Collecting TInSAR data at a sampling rate of approximately 5 min, the network has thus far collected more than 20,000 pictures, 400,000 measurements of weather data, and 400,000 SAR images (Bozzano et al 2011). The digital camera and the weather station, featuring an automatic data acquisition and transfer system, have played a key role in the monitoring activity.…”

“…This functionality also facilitates the interpretation of the results and the optical first identification and timing of landslides. In fact, during the experimental period, the slope was frequently affected by shallow translational landslides (with a volume ranging from 10 1 to 10 4 m 3 ), which represent surface evidence of a deep landslide (Bozzano et al 2011). These landslides were identified and located by optical photos (Figs.…”

A case study integrating numerical simulation and GB-InSAR monitoring to analyze flexural toppling of an anti-dip slope in Fushun open pit

“…In this paper, the results of CDEM analyses are verified by the on-site slope deformation and the results of continuous monitoring of the slope by using a state-of-the-art remote sensing apparatus that is part of an integrated monitoring platform. The platform, which consists of groundbased interferometric synthetic aperture radar (GB-InSAR) and an automatic digital camera, was installed in front of the open-pit slope to collect data continuously under all weather conditions (Bozzano et al, 2008(Bozzano et al, , 2011. Similar SAR techniques have been verified as effective and precise for monitoring and detecting surface deformation (Colesanti and Wasowski, 2006;Herrera et al, 2007;Fernandez et al, 2009;Perski et al, 2009;Tomas et al, 2010).…”