Damage to Buildings in Large Slope Rock Instabilities Monitored with the PSInSAR™ Technique

Paolo Frattini,Giovanni Crosta,Jacopo Allievi

doi:10.3390/rs5104753

Abstract

The slow movement of active deep-seated slope gravitational deformations (DSGSDs) and deep-seated rockslides can cause damage to structures and infrastructures. We use Permanent Scatterers Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (PSInSAR™) displacement rate data for the analysis of DSGSD/rockslide activity and kinematics and for the analysis of damage to buildings. We surveyed the degree of damage to buildings directly in the field, and we tried to correlate it with the superficial displacement rate obtained by the PSInSAR™ technique at seven sites. Overall, we observe that the degree of damage increases with increasing displacement rate, but this trend shows a large dispersion that can be due to different causes, including: the uncertainty in the attribution of the degree of damage for buildings presenting wall coatings; the complexity of the deformation for large phenomena with different materials and subjected to differential behavior within the displaced mass; the absence of differential superficial movements in buildings, due to the large size of the investigated phenomena; and the different types of buildings and their position along the slope or relative to landslide portions.

Highlights

IntroductionLarge slow-moving non-catastrophic slope rock instabilities represent an important geological risk
Large slow-moving non-catastrophic slope rock instabilities represent an important geological risk.They can cause the deformation of structures and infrastructures and, due to the damage of rock masses, resulting in the decay of mechanical properties, secondary landslides can be triggered within their limits [1]
Large slope rock instabilities include both very large rockslides and deep-seated gravitational slope deformations (DSGSDs) [4,5], the latter being characterized by the involvement of entire valley flanks, the presence of gravitational morphostructures and the geomorphological evidence of slope deformation and displacements along individual structures and inherited tectonic features [1,6,7,8,9,10]

Summary

Introduction

Large slow-moving non-catastrophic slope rock instabilities represent an important geological risk. They can cause the deformation of structures and infrastructures (i.e., dams, tunnels, railway tracks, buildings, [1,2,3]) and, due to the damage of rock masses, resulting in the decay of mechanical properties, secondary landslides can be triggered within their limits [1]. DSGSD has been considered until recently to be a class of relict phenomena inactive under present climatic conditions, geomorphological and geochronological evidence recently demonstrated that movements associated with large slides and DSGSD, slow, can continue for long periods, producing large cumulative displacements [11,12,13,14]. Surface displacements typically range from a few millimeters to several centimeters per year and are commonly close to the detection precision of monitoring equipment [8,15]

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