title: A Low-Cost Optical Remote Sensing Application for Glacier Deformation Monitoring in an Alpine Environment.
abstract: In this work, we present the results of a low-cost optical monitoring station designed for monitoring the kinematics of glaciers in an Alpine environment. We developed a complete hardware/software data acquisition and processing chain that automatically acquires, stores and co-registers images. The system was installed in September 2013 to monitor the evolution of the Planpincieux glacier, within the open-air laboratory of the Grandes Jorasses, Mont Blanc massif (NW Italy), and collected data with an hourly frequency. The acquisition equipment consists of a high-resolution DSLR camera operating in the visible band. The data are processed with a Pixel Offset algorithm based on normalized cross-correlation, to estimate the deformation of the observed glacier. We propose a method for the pixel-to-metric conversion and present the results of the projection on the mean slope of the glacier. The method performances are compared with measurements obtained by GB-SAR, and exhibit good agreement. The system provides good support for the analysis of the glacier evolution and allows the creation of daily displacement maps.
authors: GeoHazard Monitoring Group-Institute of Research for the Geo-Hydrological Protection-National Council of Research of Italy, 10135 Turin, Italy. daniele.giordan@irpi.cnr.it.
authors: Daniele
authors: D
authors: Giordan
authors: GeoHazard Monitoring Group-Institute of Research for the Geo-Hydrological Protection-National Council of Research of Italy, 10135 Turin, Italy. paolo.allasia@irpi.cnr.it.
authors: Paolo
authors: P
authors: Allasia
authors: GeoHazard Monitoring Group-Institute of Research for the Geo-Hydrological Protection-National Council of Research of Italy, 10135 Turin, Italy. niccolo.dematteis@irpi.cnr.it.
authors: Niccolò
authors: N
authors: Dematteis
authors: GeoHazard Monitoring Group-Institute of Research for the Geo-Hydrological Protection-National Council of Research of Italy, 10135 Turin, Italy. federico.dellanese@irpi.cnr.it.
authors: Federico
authors: F
authors: Dell'Anese
authors: Fondazione Montagna Sicura, 11013 Courmayeur, Italy. mvagliasindi@fondms.org.
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Vagliasindi
authors: Fondazione Montagna Sicura, 11013 Courmayeur, Italy. emotta@fondms.org.
authors: Elena
authors: E
authors: Motta
keywords: glacier kinematics; image matching; low-cost equipment; monitoring; remote sensing