TY - JOUR
T1 - Identification of potential rockfall sources using UAV-derived point cloud
AU - Albarelli, D. S. N. A.
AU - Mavrouli, O. C.
AU - Nyktas, P.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was developed in the context of the MSc research of the first author, funded by the Excellence Scholarship Program of the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, the Netherlands. The authors gratefully acknowledge the personnel and president, Petros Lymberakis, of the Management Body of Samaria – West Crete, and the Forest Directorate of Chania for the logistic support and permissions for the fieldwork activities in the area. The second author additionally acknowledges the projects “Advances in rockfall quantitative risk analysis incorporating developments in geomatics—GeoRisk” (reference code: PID2019-103974RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and “Characterization and modeling of rockfalls—RockModels” (reference code: BIA2016-75668-P) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and co-funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and, the latter, by The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF or FEDER in Spanish), within the framework of the State Plan of Scientific-Technical Research and Innovation. Finally, the authors acknowledge the editorial board member and reviewers of this journal for the comments and suggestions that significantly contributed for the quality of this publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/8/5
Y1 - 2021/8/5
N2 - Recent advances in remote sensing techniques and computer algorithms allow accurate, abundant, and high-resolution geometric information retrieval for rock mass characterization from 3D point clouds. The automatic application of the extracted information for local scale rockfall susceptibility assessment, where discontinuities characteristics play a major role in rocky slope stability, requires step by step logical procedures. This paper presents a novel methodology to use the extracted discontinuity set characteristics for a local scale rockfall susceptibility assessment, tailored for Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data acquisition. The method consists of 4 steps: (i) 3D slope model reconstruction using UAV digital photogrammetry, (ii) automatic characterization of discontinuity sets, (iii) slope stability analysis, and (iv) susceptibility assessment using a new Rockfall Susceptibility Index. The proposed method was applied to a road cut rocky slope in a mountainous area of the Samaria National Park, in Crete Island, Greece. Visual validation indicates that the areas of higher and moderate rockfall susceptibility on the 3D model of the rocky slope are adjacent to rockfall source areas marked by the presence of fallen blocks on the foot of the slope. The proposed methodological workflow presents novelties related to the use of point clouds for the estimation of the Rock Quality Designation (RQD) index, the visualization of discontinuity set spacing, the evaluation of the persistence and the Slope Mass Rating (SMR) index, as well as the incorporation of the persistence of overhangs into the rockfall susceptibility assessment and visualization.
AB - Recent advances in remote sensing techniques and computer algorithms allow accurate, abundant, and high-resolution geometric information retrieval for rock mass characterization from 3D point clouds. The automatic application of the extracted information for local scale rockfall susceptibility assessment, where discontinuities characteristics play a major role in rocky slope stability, requires step by step logical procedures. This paper presents a novel methodology to use the extracted discontinuity set characteristics for a local scale rockfall susceptibility assessment, tailored for Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data acquisition. The method consists of 4 steps: (i) 3D slope model reconstruction using UAV digital photogrammetry, (ii) automatic characterization of discontinuity sets, (iii) slope stability analysis, and (iv) susceptibility assessment using a new Rockfall Susceptibility Index. The proposed method was applied to a road cut rocky slope in a mountainous area of the Samaria National Park, in Crete Island, Greece. Visual validation indicates that the areas of higher and moderate rockfall susceptibility on the 3D model of the rocky slope are adjacent to rockfall source areas marked by the presence of fallen blocks on the foot of the slope. The proposed methodological workflow presents novelties related to the use of point clouds for the estimation of the Rock Quality Designation (RQD) index, the visualization of discontinuity set spacing, the evaluation of the persistence and the Slope Mass Rating (SMR) index, as well as the incorporation of the persistence of overhangs into the rockfall susceptibility assessment and visualization.
KW - ITC-ISI-JOURNAL-ARTICLE
KW - ITC-HYBRID
KW - UT-Hybrid-D
UR - https://ezproxy2.utwente.nl/login?url=https://library.itc.utwente.nl/login/2021/isi/albarelli_ide.pdf
U2 - 10.1007/s10064-021-02306-2
DO - 10.1007/s10064-021-02306-2
M3 - Article
VL - 80
SP - 6539
EP - 6561
JO - Bulletin of engineering geology and the environment
JF - Bulletin of engineering geology and the environment
SN - 1435-9529
IS - 8
ER -