The use of satellite data to support the structural health monitoring in areas affected by slow-moving landslides: a potential application to reinforced concrete buildings

Abstract

The building stock around the world is exposed to different types of natural actions such as earthquakes or landslides. In particular, Italy is one of the countries worldwide most affected by landslides. Mitigation of landslide risk is a topic of great interest for the evaluation and management of its consequences. Periodical monitoring of the landslide-induced damage on structures require high costs due to the large number of exposed elements. With respect to the reinforced concrete structures, slow-moving landslides can affect primary structural elements, but more frequently damage occurs on the most vulnerable elements of the structure such as infills. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the potential utility of satellite data derived from a remote sensing technique, known as differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry, to support the structural health monitoring of reinforced concrete buildings affected by landslides. This article shows the structural health monitoring process for a reinforced concrete infilled building within a landslide-affected area, using the differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry data as input for the structural analysis in order to investigate the evolution of damage over the years. Three-dimensional structure, including the explicit infills consideration, has been modeled based on the information available from a visual survey, obtaining the missing parameters from a simulated design process and from the literature. In the field of the civil protection programs for the landslide risk reduction, this methodology can be quickly repeated for large sets of reinforced concrete buildings. Evidence of the visual survey showed a significant damage pattern in some infills. A good agreement has been found between analytical previsions and existing damage. Moreover, a global infills damage assessment of the case study building is proposed. Finally, assuming a constant increase in displacements in future years, a prediction of the future expected damage is shown.

On the integration of multi-temporal synthetic aperture radar interferometry products and historical surveys data for buildings structural monitoring

“…For this reason, in most applications which make use of advanced DInSAR measurements, a spatial resampling of the data obtained in the two acquisition geometries is usually required, to decompose the measured displacement along the vertical and E-W directions [5,10].…”

“…A focus, through a case study, on the building deformation assessment by means of persistent scatterer interferometry analysis is developed in [3]. The application of DInSAR techniques for the assessment of the damage induced by slow-moving landslides in Moio della Civitella (Salerno province, Italy) urban settlement on the existing buildings [4,5], also in combination with seismic actions [6], is presented. In [7] an overview of the results of diagnostic and monitoring activities carried out through satellite radar interferometry and in-situ measurements of two historic buildings is reported.…”

“…[13][14][15][16][17][18][19]), or to provide a full structural assessment by impressing the displacements at the base of the building in an analytical structural model (e.g. [5,6]).…”

GNSS and RPAS Integration Techniques for Studying Landslide Dynamics: Application to the Areas of Victoria and Colinas Lojanas, (Loja, Ecuador)

“…Re-cent advances in remote sensing have made it possible to collect 3D data of the terrain, which have been used in landslide research [16][17][18], such as the techniques of differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR), light detection and ranging (LI-DAR), and photogrammetry. DinSAR allows the monitoring of ground deformations with millimeter/centimeter precision [18][19][20], and are widely used to measure the behavior of existing infrastructures and buildings in the area affected by a landslide. One advantage they offer is their use in larger regions where geological hazards are present that can be determined by these techniques, however, a disadvantage that remote sensing techniques have is their acquisition geometry, which only allows the detection of fractions of horizontal movements [19].…”

Seismic Assessment of an Existing Rc Building Affected by Slow-Moving Landslides Induced Displacements Monitored by Remote Sensing Technique

“…For the seismic assessment, the international literature includes many methodologies and applications related to specific investigation issues [1][2][3][4]. Many studies can also be found regarding the evaluation of the structural damage as consequence of phenomena inducing slow displacements, monitored through satellite data for consistent periods [5][6][7], in particular for landslides [8][9][10][11][12]. The research in terms of landslide-earthquake multi-risk analysis, indeed, is very limited [13].…”