Monitoring Landslide Displacements Through Maximum Cross-Correlation of Sentinel-2 Satellite Images

Abstract

Landslides are one of the most dangerous geological hazards worldwide, posing threats to human life, infrastructures and to the natural environment. Consequently, it is important to monitor active landslides in order to reduce the risk of damages and casualties. With this in mind, this work presents a procedure to compute landslide displacements through time, by exploiting the availability of open high quality multispectral satellite images. The developed procedure produces maps of displacement magnitude and direction by means of local maximum cross-correlation of Sentinel-2 images. The Ruinon landslide, an active landslide in Upper Valtellina (Northern Italy), was analysed with the developed technique during two different time windows (yearly analysis between 2015 and 2020, monthly analysis in July, August and September 2019). This procedure was designed to be entirely based on free and open-source GIS software and to rely exclusively on open data. These characteristics allow the analysis to be easily replicated, customized, and empowered.