Short-term geomorphological evolution of the Poggio Baldi landslide upper scarp via 3D change detection

Abstract

On 19 March 2010, a 4 million m3 landslide occurred at Poggio Baldi, a small village in the Santa Sofia municipality, central Apennines (Forlì-Cesena, Italy). The landslide caused severe damages to some homes and obstructed both the SS310 national road and the Bidente river. The Poggio Baldi landslide arose in the “Marnoso-Arenacea Romagnola” formation composed of a pelitic-arenaceous turbiditic sequence. The landslide was classified as a rotational landslide, evolving into a partially confined flow-like landslide and causing the reactivation of the deposit of a previous landslide that took place in 1914. This paper reports a study of the phenomena currently occurring on the 100-m high main scarp of this landslide complex. The aim of the study was to assess ground changes that occurred on the upper scarp from 2015 to 2018 and to infer a preliminary evolutionary model capable of supporting short-term landslide scenarios. For this purpose, multi-station terrestrial laser scanner surveys were performed in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Additionally, an unmanned aerial vehicle three-dimensional photogrammetric survey was carried out in 2016. Analyses of the three-dimensional digital models of the main scarp made it possible to carry out several exhaustive multi-temporal investigations and to derive a detailed three-dimensional change detection scheme for it. The results showed an active geomorphological evolution of the rock scarp area due to frequent rockfalls and topples (of the order of a few m3), with significant local volume changes (a few thousand m3/year) and with potential implications for the long-term evolution of the entire slope.

Contribution of High-Resolution Digital Twins for the Definition of Rockfall Activity and Associated Hazard Modelling

“…Lost volumes within the four analysed sectors located over the rock scarp represent most of the total gained volume at the toe, thus revealing the main contribution of these areas in terms of rock block release. This agrees with the findings reported by [24].…”

“…The lab employs the most advanced remote sensing tools to monitor the activity of the main rock scarp and the related debris talus at its toe. Over the years, many surveys and investigations have been carried out using modern remote sensing techniques (e.g., Terrestrial Laser Scanner, Drone Photogrammetry, Terrestrial-InSAR, Gigapixel imaging, and PhotoMonitoring TM ) in order to acquire as much information as possible about active gravitational processes [22,24,25].…”

The Use of Innovative Techniques for Management of High-Risk Coastal Areas, Mitigation of Earthquake-Triggered Landslide Risk and Responsible Coastal Development

“…During the last few years, there has been an ongoing debate as to whether the direct TLS point clouds are more accurate and precise than the indirect data constructed after photogrammetric processing [91][92][93]. In this context, more attention has been given to the latter, which can also generate high-resolution 3D models of slopes, focusing on the advantage of low costs, flexible oblique view sensing and photo-realistic vision information when compared with terrestrial LiDAR point clouds [94], which are produced by rather expensive equipment.…”

Enhancing the Thermal Images of the Upper Scarp of the Poggio Baldi Landslide (Italy) by Physical Modeling and Image Analysis

“…The Poggio Baldi landslide is one of the largest rock and debris phenomena in the Italian Apennines and a permanent natural monitoring site managed by the Department of Earth Sciences of the Sapienza University of Rome [27]. Advanced remote sensing tools are installed in order to monitor the activity of the main rocky scarp, which is often a source of rockfalls, and the related debris talus at the toe [26].…”

“…It is generally believed that thermal infrared imaging can only identify direct sources of heat, such as living beings or engines in operation, or, to enter the domain of geological risk monitoring, volcanic eruptions [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] or geothermal heat sources [29]. In the specific case of landslide monitoring, infrared thermography has been used to characterize either the different types of terrains within a landslide area [13,15] or the thermal and mechanical properties of rocky walls [8,17,30], as we also do here.…”