Monitoring glaciers in the Val Ferret (Italy) with high resolution SAR imagery

Project lead

Deputy

Project staff

Project duration

2023

This pilot activity proposed by SLF in agreement with Fondazione Montagna Sicura (FMS, https://www.fondazionemontagnasicura.org/) is aimed at identifying and measuring the surface changes and displacements affecting on the Planpincieux glacier, Val Ferret, Italy, by using very high-resolution satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) datasets.

SLF proposed the use of the commercial satellite constellation ICEYE (http://www.iceye.com), due to high spatial and temporal resolution nowadays achievable with this system and based on prior experience performed with such data over alpine areas.

The activity consists in: (i) tasking ad-hoc on the Planpincieux Glacier ICEYE acquisitions; (ii) applying radiometric calibration and topographic correction of the raw SAR imagery; (iii) testing change detection capabilities; (iv) testing Digital Image Correlation (DIC) techniques to measure surface displacements.

Exemplary results of the DIC analysis applied to the images acquired on August 9 and 18, 2023 (9 days), descending orbit, left look. The optical image (Google Earth) is for reference. The DIC results are in SAR geometry. Positive values (red) in the range direction mean the displacement is towards the satellite look (range shortening). Positive values (red) in azimuth mean displacement along the satellite flying direction.

Hauptinhalt

Monitoring glaciers in the Val Ferret (Italy) with high resolution SAR imagery