Detection of a landslide movement as geometric misregistration in image matching of SPOT HRV data of two different dates

Abstract

A landslide movement was detected as geometric misregistration in image matching between two SPOT HRV panchromatic image data of different acquisition dates. The test site is an active landslide in Itaya area, Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan. The average rate of the landslide movement is approximately 1 cm per day based upon differential GPS measurements. Pixel level and subpixel level image matching was applied to an HRV image pair obtained on 1 November 1987 and 29 October 1993. As a result, the landslide movement was successfully detected as misregistration vectors between the two HRV scenes. The displacement is approximately 20 m to 30 m over the 6-year period between 1987 and 1993 and is consistent with the landslide movement inferred from the GPS measurements.