The COSMO-SkyMed Constellation Monitors the Costa Concordia Wreck

Abstract

On 13 January 2012, the Italian vessel, Costa Concordia, wrecked offshore Giglio Island, along the coast of Tuscany (Italy). The ship partially sunk, lying on the starboard side on a 22° steep rocky seabed, making the stability conditions of the ship critically in danger of sliding, shifting and settling. The tilted position of the ship created also pernicious conditions for the divers involved in the search and rescue operations. It became immediately clear that a continuous monitoring of the position and movements of the ship was of paramount importance to guarantee the security of the people working around and within the wreck. Starting from January 19, the Italian constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, COSMO-SkyMed (CSK), was tasked to acquire high resolution images of the wreck. Thanks to CSK's short response and revisiting time and its capability to acquire high resolution images in Spotlight mode, satellite data were integrated within the real time, ground-based monitoring system implemented to provide the civil protection authorities with a regular update on the ship stability. Exploitation of both the phase (satellite radar interferometry, InSAR) and amplitude (speckle tracking) information from CSK images, taken along the acquisition orbit, Enhanced Spotlight (ES)-29, revealed a general movement of the translation of the vessel, consistent with OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2014, 6 3989 sliding toward the east of the hull on the seabed. A total displacement, with respect to the coastline, of 1666 mm and 345 mm of the bow and stern, respectively, was recorded, over the time period of

Exploitation of Amplitude and Phase of Satellite SAR Images for Landslide Mapping: The Case of Montescaglioso (South Italy)

“…The amplitude-based Rapid Motion Tracking (RMT) is a recently developed technique for tracking movements exhibiting displacement rates exceeding those observable with SAR Interferometry [9,24]. By tracking amplitude features in multi-temporal SAR data, it is possible to extract displacement time series, in a way similar to what InSAR algorithms provide, working on phase data.…”

“…This appears to be related to: (i) the wide data availability, resulting from the launches of a number of platforms hosting radar sensors with increasing imaging capabilities, in terms of both spatial and temporal resolutions [1][2][3]; (ii) the development of new data processing techniques, such as SqueeSAR [4], which extends the applicability of Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) methods [5][6][7][8] to non-urban areas; (iii) the improved capabilities of new generation X-band satellites in terms of flexibility and time performance (revisiting time and timeliness of delivery) which contributed to the use of satellite SAR sensors as operational monitoring tools [9,10].…”

Space-Borne and Ground-Based InSAR Data Integration: The Åknes Test Site

“…Integrated use of multi-source monitoring data reduces the possibility of missing events or generating false alarms and the consequent loss of confidence and reliability of the system. In recent years, the improved capabilities of new generation X-band satellites in terms of flexibility and time performance (revisiting time and timeliness of delivery) contributed to the use of satellite SAR sensors as operational monitoring tools [63,64]. Remote monitoring represents more and more a tool for surveying and/or early warning.…”

A Hierarchical Approach to Persistent Scatterer Network Construction and Deformation Time Series Estimation

“…Therefore, the hierarchical approach proposed in this paper is very suitable for estimating deformation rates even over a huge area of interest with the use of time series of high-resolution SAR images. Moreover, the reduction of computer time for the PSI solution will play a crucial role when dealing with emergency situations [20]. Although the computation cost has been estimated only with the single thread operation, the hierarchical approach proposed in this paper can be extended to the parallel computation, thus leaving room for future work.…”