Detection and Analysis of Ground Deformation in Permafrost Environments

Abstract

In situ monitoring of periglacial dynamics is essential for the study of periglacial morphology and the design of mitigation and adaptation measures for infrastructure in permafrost zones. Evaluation of future effects of climate change on and from the periglacial environment requires understanding of surficial and internal deformation processes. Monitoring of internal deformation is still uncommon, primarily because of high costs. By contrast, major advancements in remote‐sensing technologies allow detailed assessment of surface deformation for large study areas. Technological advancements are anticipated to enhance spatial and temporal resolution, lighten sensors and improve unmanned aerial vehicles technology. The last of these will facilitate and reduce costs for data collection in remote areas under harsh climatic conditions. Increasing application of Structure‐from‐Motion, a photogrammetric image analysis technique, is anticipated, due to its precision, resolution, ease of usage and low cost. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Monitoring the crisis of a rock glacier with repeated UAV surveys

“…Despite comprehensive inventory and mapping efforts in the western Swiss Alps (Barboux et al, 2014;Lambiel et al, 2016), it can occur that some active rock glaciers were missed due to their small size or lack of well-defined boundaries. This is the case of La Roussette rock glacier (0.02 km 2 ), which was recently identified in the upper Arolla valley (Fontanesses catchment), Valais Alps (Fig.…”

“…Active rock glaciers are dynamic in their nature, and they represent one of the most visible expressions of creeping mountain permafrost (Barsch, 1996;Haeberli et al, 2006). Rock glaciers provide a flux of debris and ice through the landscape, from the upper feeding zone, through the rock glacier body, to the terminus (Kääb and Reichmuth, 2005).…”

“…Remote-sensing tools that monitor the changes in highmountain regions have significantly progressed over the past few years in several key areas, as evidenced by advances in lidar (Micheletti et al, 2016), InSAR (Barboux et al, 2014), aerial photogrammetry (Fischer et al, 2013), and the availability of ready-to-use data and specialized software via web portals. However, the surge in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems has revolutionised the military, commercial and academic sectors due to their comparably lower operational costs, increased temporal frequencies and highly customisable settings (Carbonneau and Dietrich, 2016;Klauser and Pedrozo, 2017;Nex and Remondino, 2014).…”

“…Simultaneously, new developments in the domain of image processing and photogrammetric techniques, such as structure for motion (SfM), have proliferated over recent years Westoby et al, 2012). SfM photogrammetry has been used in different domains, such as monitoring ground deformation in permafrost environments (Arenson et al, 2016), snow depth from UAV data (Nolan et al, 2015) and for studying glacial and periglacial processes (Piermattei et al, 2016), among other applications. Still, the use of UAV systems and SfM techniques for monitoring the creep of mountain permafrost are few (Dall'Asta et al, 2017;Hendrickx et al, 2019), and the deployment of their full potential remains undeveloped.…”

Ground subsidence and heave over permafrost: hourly time series reveal inter-annual, seasonal and shorter-term movement caused by freezing, thawing and water movement

“…Methods for observing heave and subsidence at point locations in-situ and areally by remotete sensing are discussed in a recent review (Arenson et al, 2016). Here, the characteristics of in-situ methods are presented to provide context for the new method proposed.…”