A Novel Approach to Landslide Monitoring based on Unmanned Aerial System Photogrammetry

Landslides represent great dangers that can cause fatalities and huge property damage. To prevent or reduce all possible consequences that landslides cause, it is necessary to know the kinematics of the surface and undersurface sliding masses. Geodetic surveying techniques can be used for landslide monitoring and creating a kinematic model of the landslide. One of the most used surveying techniques for landslide monitoring is the photogrammetric survey by Unmanned Aerial System. The results of the photogrammetric survey are dense point clouds, digital terrain models, and digital orthomosaic maps, where landslide displacements can be determined by comparing these results in two measurement epochs. This paper presents a new data processing method with a novel approach for calculating landslide displacements based on Unmanned Aerial System photogrammetric survey data. The main advantage of the new method is that it does not require the production of dense point clouds, digital terrain models, or digital orthomosaic maps to determine displacements. The applicability and accuracy of the new method were tested in a test field with simulated displacements of known values within the range of 20-40 cm in various directions. The new method successfully determined these displacements with a 3D accuracy of +/- 1.3 cm.

Automated summary

Landslides can cause fatalities and property damage, so it is necessary to understand the kinematics of sliding masses. Geodetic surveying techniques, such as photogrammetric survey by Unmanned Aerial System, can be used for landslide monitoring. This paper presents a new method for calculating landslide displacements based on photogrammetric survey data, which does not require the production of dense point clouds or terrain models. The accuracy of the new method was tested in a field, successfully determining known displacements with a 3D accuracy of +/- 1.3 cm.