Every year slope instabilities cause large socio-economic losses on life and property worldwide. Indeed, the casualties caused by mass movements are among the highest in the industrialized world. In this contest SLAM, a project funded by ESA, is aimed to the implementation of landslides mapping and monitoring service.

The main objective of the SLAM project is to develop and qualify a complete service meant to supply products, mainly derived from satellite data, that can be integrated into the operational activities of those Institutions that are in charge of landslide risk management. A peculiarity of the SLAM project is the active involvement of the end-users. In fact, the service is tailored to the requirements proposed by some national and local organizations, involved in landslide risk assessment and management in Italy  and Switzerland.

The innovative aspect of this project is the integration of the SAR techniques and EO data with the in situ documentation currently in use for the landslide monitoring. In particular, SLAM is designed to realise three types of products:   

 

 

The Landslide Motion Survey is a large scale product and could be a useful support for the geological risk service agencies in their activities related to the update of landslide inventories and the planning of structural intervention. 

The Landslide Displacement Monitoring allows the monitoring of the areas of interest on a reduced scale basis. The objective is to accurately quantify the deformation field of unstable areas through the displacement rate measurement of some points located within the landslide body. The outputs could be integrated with the in situ observation to monitor the areas characterized with high hydrogeological risk, and to test the effectiveness of structural interventions. 

The Landslide Susceptibility Mapping classifies the area of interest with respect to different classes of landslide susceptibility/hazard. The product is realized through the integration of the information concerning the spatial distribution of landslide, resulting from the two products above, with the thematic maps of land use, slope, geomorphology, and more. The Landslide Susceptibility Mapping could support geological hazard mapping and could be considered as an important tool for land use planning and environmental impact assessment. 

In Italy the Type 1 service is provided for a service case in Campania and for the whole extent of Arno River Basin. The test sites chosen for the implementation of the Type 2 service are located in Campania Region (i.e. Campolattaro, San Marco dei Cavoti, Reino and Pesco Sannita) and in Arno Basin (i.e. Pelago, Poggibonsi, Chianciano and Capannori municipalities). Finally, the Type 3 service will be developed for the whole extent of Arno River Basin.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland the large scale service (i.e. Type 1) will be developed for eastern Berne and Valais Cantons and for the site of Grindelwald.  The Swiss test sites selected for the Type 2 service implementation are located in the Canton of Berne (i.e. Grindelwald, Wengen, Lauterbrunnen), Canton of Valais (i.e. Grubengletsher, Montagnon, Gräechen, La Frasse), Canton Ticino (i.e. Biasca, Preonzo, Airolo) and Canton Fribourg (area around Schwarzsee). Finally, for the site of Grindelwald the Type 3 service will be developed.

For the Italian service cases the interferometric analysis is based on the PS technique, developed and patented by Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and improved by Tele-Rilevamento Europa. For the Swiss cases, multi-pass SAR interferometry, including Interferometric Point Target Analysis (IPTA), will be applied by Gamma Remote Sensing.