Multi-scale analysis of landslide occurrence and evolution using optical and radar time series

Landslides represent a worldwide natural hazard and often occur as cascading effects related to triggering events, such as earthquakes and hydrometeorological extremes. Recent examples are the Kaikoura earthquake in New Zealand (November 2016), the Gorkha earthquake in Nepal (April/May 2015), and the Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan (August 2009) as well as less intense rainfall events persisting over unusually long periods of time as observed for Central Asia (spring 2017) and Iran (spring 2019). Each of these events has caused thousands of landslides that account substantially to the primary disaster’s impact. Moreover, their initial failure usually represents the onset of long-term progressing slope destabilization leading to multiple reactivations and thus to long-term increased hazard and risk. Therefore, regular systematic high-resolution monitoring of landslide prone regions is of key importance for characterization, understanding and modelling of spatiotemporal landslide evolution in the context of different triggering and predisposing settings. Because of the large extent of the affected areas of up to several ten thousands km², the use of multi-temporal and multi-scale remote sensing methods is of key importance for large area process analysis. In this context, new opportunities have opened up with the increasing availability of satellite remote sensing data of suitable spatial and temporal resolution (Sentinels, Planet) as well as the advances in UAV based very high resolution monitoring and mapping.

During the last decade, we have been pursuing extensive methodological developments in remote sensing based time series analysis including optical and radar observations with the goal of performing large area and at the same time detailed spatiotemporal analysis of landslide prone regions. These developments include automated post-failure landslide detection and mapping as well as assessment of the kinematics of pre- and post-failure slope evolution.  Our combined optical and radar remote sensing approaches aim at an improved understanding of spatiotemporal dynamics and complexities related to evolution of landslide prone slopes at different spatial and temporal scales.  In this context, we additionally integrate UAV-based observation for deriving volumetric changes also related to globally available DEM products, such as SRTM and ALOS.  

We present results for selected settings comprising large area co-seismic landslide occurrence related to the Kaikoura 2016 and the Nepal 2015 earthquakes. For the latter one we also analyzed annual pre- and post-seismic monsoon related landslide activity contributing to a better understanding of the interplay between these main triggering factors. Moreover, we report on ten years of large area systematic landslide monitoring in Southern Kyrgyzstan resulting in a multi-temporal regional landslide inventory of so far unprecedented spatiotemporal detail and completeness forming the basis for further analysis of the obtained landslide concentration patterns. We also present first results of our analysis of landslides triggered by intense rainfall and flood events in spring of 2019 in the North of Iran. We conclude that in all cases, the obtained results are crucial for improved landslide prediction and reduction of future landslide impact. Thus, our methodological developments represent an important contribution towards improved hazard and risk assessment as well as rapid mapping and early warning