Remote 3D Mapping and GB-InSAR Monitoring of the Calatabiano Landslide (Southern Italy)

Abstract

On October 24th 2015, following a period of heavy rainfall, a landslide triggered in the Calatabiano Municipality (Sicily Island, Southern Italy) causing the rupture of a water pipeline transect of the aqueduct supplying water to the city of Messina. This event, caused critical water shortages for several days to a large part of the city inhabitants. In order to restore the city water supplies, a provisional by-pass, consisting of three 350 m long pipes passing through the landslide area, was carried out. On November 11th 2015, a landslide monitoring system was installed, based on the combined use of advanced remote sensing techniques such as Ground-Based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (GB-InSAR), Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Infrared Thermography (IRT). The installed monitoring system allowed to: (i) analyze the landslide geomorphological and kinematic features in order to assess the landslide residual risk; (ii) support the early warning procedures needed to ensure the safety of the personnel involved in the by-pass realization and the landslide stabilization works. In this work, the preliminary results of the monitoring activities and a 3-D mapping of the landslide area are presented.