Displacements with Remote Sensing and Standard Ground Survey for the Benedictine Basilica of S. Angelo in Formis (Southern Italy)

Abstract

Cultural and historic buildings, such as ancient palaces and churches are rare and irreplaceable wealth of human civilization. Unfortunately, they are often impacted by natural calamities and anthropogenic activities. Consequently, the monitoring and preventive diagnosis of structure's deformation, as well as their surroundings, are essential for their safeguarding and conservation. Highprecision and efficient monitoring facilitates the early recognition of potential risks and enables preventive diagnosis of heritage sites.This work shows the potentiality of remote sensing technique as a complementary tool for the analysis of the movements of Benedictine Basilica of S. Angelo in Formis, an important monumental building in the area north of Napoli in Southern Italy.Geological survey of the area, subsoil investigations and the integrated analysis of remote sensing and geodetic data, allowed to perform a very careful and detailed investigation about the structural performance of the Basilica. In detail, Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) data have permitted a global interpretation of the Basilica's deformation and its surrounding areas: C-band products, available starting from 2003, have been integrated with topographic measurements, providing building displacement time-series which confirmed the occurrence of differential settlements of the monument.