ESA - Observing the Earth - Landslide warnings from satellites may save lives

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Landslide warnings from satellites may save lives

4 February 2004

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A view of the landslide that hit the village of Romagnano, near Trento, northern Italy, Tuesday Nov. 21, 2000. Heavy rains often cause landslides in susceptible areas of the country, causing property damage and sometimes fatalities. Landslides are the subject of a new ESA-backed service called SLAM (Service for Landslide Monitoring).

Credits: AP Photo/Gianfranco Bernardinatti

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Preliminary results from Montagnon, Switzerland

Preliminary SLAM results from Montagnon in Valais, Switzerland. The coloured points represent land movement measured via interferometry in millimetres per year: from -5 mm/year in purple, on a scale up through red and orange, with light green around zero, up to blue at +1 mm per year.

Credits: ESA/GAMMA

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A landslide in a Swiss valley: about 8% of the country's territory is at risk of slope instabilities. The ESA-backed SLAM (Service for Landslides Monitoring) project uses satellite radar interferometry to assist local bodies responsible for managing this hazard.

Credits: Swiss Federal Office of Water and Geology

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SLAM Landslide Displacement Monitoring Product Example

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SLAM Landslide Displacement Monitoring Product Example. The image is an aerial photo draped on a 20m-resolution Digital Elevation Model and overlaid by Permanent Scatterers derived from processing of ERS SAR satellite data. Permanent Scatterers are stable sites within the landscape such as walls or large boulders whose coherence makes SAR interferometry possible. These Permanent Scatterers have been identified on ascending and descending satellite tracks by Tele-Rilevamento Europa exploiting ten years of ESA data archives, interpreted by the Universitá di Firenze in order to analyse the behaviour of specific known landslides.

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Landslide Monitoring Survey Product for Arno Basin, Italy

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Sample SLAM Landslide Motion Survey Product for part of the Arno Basin, Italy. The image shows an aerial photo overlaid by permanent scatterers derived from processing of ERS SAR data and coloured landslide polygons depicting the status of activity of landslides. Such polygons are defined by incorporating Permanent Scatterer-derived information (the average velocity along the Line of Sight) within conventional geomorphologic analysis.

Credits: ESA/TRE/Universitá di Firenze

FRINGE scientists use radar vision to see the Earth move All that glitters: The first ERS/Envisat interferogram