The Maoxian landslide as seen from space: detecting precursors of failure with Sentinel-1 data

• DOI: 10.1007/s10346-017-0915-7
• Publication Date: 2017-11-09T07:45:00Z
• Authors: Emanuele Intrieri; Federico Raspini; Alfio Fumagalli; Ping Lu; Sara Del Conte; Paolo Farina; Jacopo Allievi; Alessandro Ferretti; Nicola Casagli
• Keywords: 0211 other engineering and technologies; Landslide; SAR interferometry; Monitoring; Early warning; Sentinel-1; 02 engineering and technology

Post-event Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) analysis on a stack of 45 C-band SAR images acquired by the ESA Sentinel-1 satellites from 9 October 2014 to 19 June 2017 allowed identification clear precursory deformation signal for Maoxian landslide (Mao County, Sichuan Province, China). The occurred in early morning 24 and killed more than 100 people village Xinmo. have been processed through an advanced multi-interferogram capable maximising density measurement points, generating ground maps displacement time series area 460 km2 straddling Minjiang River Songping Gully. InSAR data clearly show precursors slope failure source landslide, with maximum rate detected 27 mm/year along line sight satellite. Deformation points identified within main scarp exhibit acceleration starting April 2017. A detailed leads classification different behaviours. Fukuzono method forecasting appear be applicable exhibiting progressive acceleration. Results suggest that satellite radar data, systematically over large areas short revisiting time, could used not only as tool mapping unstable areas, but also monitoring, at least some typologies sliding phenomena.