Satellite remote sensing for landslide monitoring and mapping

Dear Colleagues,

Landslide monitoring and mapping are increasingly necessary due to the worldwide increasing impact of these geomorphological phenomena on populations and built-up areas. Landslides directly and indirectly impact a territory, causing fatalities and huge socio-economic losses, requiring correct land use policies and best practices for long-term risk mitigation and reduction. In this context, satellite remote sensing and image processing techniques offer effective support for mapping and monitoring the activity of landslides at both the local and regional scales. Optical and radar images are being successfully applied worldwide to achieve these tasks, providing valuable and useful products to landslide risk management actors. The decrease of image costs and the constant improvement of processing algorithms and computational capabilities have increased the use of remotely-sensed data for supporting civil protection activities. The launch of open constellations (ESA Sentinels) that grant free-to-use products, supported by open source image analysis software and easy-to-use cloud computing platforms have greatly expanded the number of potential users of satellite data, even in developing countries. Optical sensors can be profitably used for wide area landslide mapping after an extreme rainfall event or after an earthquake. They can provide useful information for single landslide multi-temporal characterization as well as integrating optical and radar remote sensing data. Scientists usually take advantage of semi-automatic and automatic image classification algorithms, sometimes based on machine learning classifiers to retrieve landslide information. Optical images are used to derive input data for landslide susceptibility models, such as landslide and land cover data. Researchers can take advantage of the dual nature of radar images in terms of amplitude and phase. Radar images can be successfully analyzed for post-event landslide mapping where cloud coverage does not allow for a timely acquisition of reliable optical images, especially in tropical areas. For example, amplitude can be employed for textural change and pixel offset analysis. Phase allows the reconstruction of ground motions occurring between two or more acquisitions of a radar satellite over the same place. Starting from the late 90s, several image processing algorithms were developed to extract phase information. Interferometric techniques have a wide range of applications, including landslides. Slope dynamics can be successfully monitored by means of interferometric techniques, providing long time series of deformations for single measurement points starting from 1992. Satellite interferometry has been demonstrated to be one of the most useful tools for the fast and wide area reconstruction of landslide behavior and for landslide state of activity mapping. In this Special Issue, we expect to gather new applications of optical or radar images for landslide mapping and monitoring at the local to regional scale. Landslide susceptibility and landslide impact approaches using optical or radar images as the input are welcome, as are case studies based on the use of open source software and cloud computing platforms. Accepted manuscripts may cover one of these topics:

• Applications of radar or optical remote sensing data or a combination of both for landslide mapping and monitoring
• Single landslide characterization based on remote sensing data. Validation with ground instrumentation is welcome;
• Regional scale applications for landslide post-event rapid mapping and/or for long-term landslide monitoring;
• Numerical and empirical models for landslide susceptibility based on remote sensing data;
• Definition of risk scenarios and landslide impact analyses based on satellite monitoring data.

Dr. Lorenzo Solari
Dr. Andrea Ciampalini
Dr. Federica Fiorucci
Dr. Anna Barra
Guest Editors

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• landslide mapping
• landslide monitoring
• optical remote sensing
• radar remote sensing
• radar interferometry
• landslide susceptibility
• landslide impact

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