Claudia Meisina

University of Pavia | UNIPV · Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Deep-seated gravitational slope deformations (DsGSDs) are widespread phenomena in the Alpine environment. Their dynamics, although very slow, endanger human settlements and connecting infrastructures. Monitoring such phenomena is mandatory to evaluate the impact on infrastructure networks and inhabited areas. Nowadays, the implementation of a tool...

The combination between two remote surveying methods is presented herein as a pioneering approach for landslide airborne monitoring. The survey of an active landslide by UAV-based RGB photogrammetry and infrared thermography, sided by the knowledge of the field condition, allowed increasing the scientific experience on the remote sensing of slope i...

Mapping the susceptibility of earthquake-induced soil liquefaction at the continental scale is a challenge. Susceptibility of soils to liquefaction is the tendency of certain geomaterials to undergo a severe stiffness degradation and loss of shear strength. The latter could be induced by cyclic loading induced by seismic events. The liquefaction su...

In-place automatic inclinometers are typical devices used to monitor displacements of extremely slow to slow-moving landslides. The significance of these measurements requires methodologies able to distinguish real measures from anomalous ones, to quantify significant moments of acceleration in deformation trends and to determine the main factors t...

Assessing hazard of rainfall-induced shallow landslides represents a challenge for the risk management of urbanized areas for which the setting up of early warning systems, based on the reconstruction of reliable rainfall thresholds and rainfall monitoring, is a solution more practicable than the delocalization of settlements and infrastructures. C...

The RESERVOIR project aims to provide new products and services for a sustainable groundwater management model to be developed and tested in four water-stressed Mediterranean pilot sites. The water usages of these aquifers are irrigation, drinking water and/or power generation. Each site is prone to different issues such as land subsidence, salt wa...

Recent studies highlight the fragility of the Mediterranean basin against climate stresses and the difficulties of managing the sustainable development of groundwater resources. In this work, the main issues related to groundwater management have been identified from the stakeholder’s perspective in the following four representative water-stressed...

Liquefaction-induced surfacemanifestations are the result of a complex geological–geotechnical phenomenon, driven by several controlling factors. We propose a multidisciplinary methodological approach, involving engineering geologists, geomorphologists, sedimentologists, and geotechnical engineers, to build a 3D engineering geological model for liq...

Land subsidence is a natural or anthropogenic process triggering the settlement of the Earth's surface. When this phenomenon is induced by groundwater withdrawal, compaction of unconsolidated sediments causes land displacement. Differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) is widely used nowadays to monitor subsidence over extensiv...

Groundwater is a vitally important resource for humans. One of the main problems derived from the overexploitation ofaquifers is land subsidence, which in turn carries other associated natural risks. Advanced Differential satellite radarinterferometry (A-DInSAR) techniques provide valuable information on the surface displacements of the ground, whi...

Microzonation for earthquake-induced liquefaction hazard is the subdivision of a territory at a municipal or submunicipal scale in areas characterized by the same probability of liquefaction manifestation for the occurrence of an earthquake of specified intensity. The liquefaction hazard at a site depends on the severity of expected ground shaking...

Mapping large territories for earthquake-induced soil liquefaction hazard may sound like an oxymoron since soil liquefaction is by itself a spatially highly localized phenomenon. Thus, the zonation of liquefaction hazard at the continental scale (i.e. megazonation) is a truly hard facing challenge even if accepting a low level accuracy. Yet, the av...

Soil-atmosphere interaction has implications in different scientific research contexts and is increasingly investigated through field measurements. This paper reports a detailed description of interaction between shallow soil and atmosphere at two test sites in Oltrepò Pavese area (Northern Italy). The two test sites are in the same climatic area b...

Soil water potential is a key factor to study water dynamics in soil and for estimating the occurrence of natural hazards, as landslides. This parameter can be measured in field or estimated through physically-based models, limited by the availability of effective input soil properties and preliminary calibrations. Data-driven models, based on mach...

Groundwater is a critical resource that provides fresh drinking water to at least 50% of the global population and accounts for 43% of all of the water used for irrigation (Siebert et al., 2010; UNESCO, 2012). A main consequence of groundwater depletion in overexploited aquifers is land subsidence, which ensues other impacts, such as increasing flo...

Time domain reflectometry can be applied to measure soil bulk density. Monitoring of bulk density over large areas for geo–statistical analysis requires a fast and effective method allowing for acquisition of many data points. Methods are available in the literature to obtain density from TDR. However, algorithms for simultaneous measurements of de...

Land subsidence produced from the exhaustive groundwater exploitation is a phenomenon that has critical effects in many areas around the world, especially in water-scarce areas. Among the objectives of the RESources managEment by integrating eaRth observation deriVed monitoring and flOw modelIng Results (RESERVOIR) project (GA nº 1924), one of them...

In this study, we compare infinite slope and the three-dimensional stability analysis performed by SCOOPS 3D (software to analyze three-dimensional slope stability throughout a digital landscape). SCOOPS 3D is a model proposed by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS), the potentialities of which have still not been investigated sufficiently. The compa...

Different inter-row agronomical practices can deeply influence the soil properties and the grapevine root development, especially for those vineyards cultivated along steep slopes. Cultivation of grapevines on slope systems represents also a fundamental component of the local economy. This study is aimed at assessing the sustainability of differen...

This paper presents a geospatial methodology for zoning the earthquake-induced soil liquefaction risk at a continental scale and set-up in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment by coupling data-driven and knowledge-driven approaches. It is worth mentioning that liquefaction is a phenomenon of soil instability occurring at a very local s...

Cultivation of grapevines in sloping soils is very widespread all over the world, representing also a fundamental branch of the local economy of several hilly zones. Vineyards can be managed in different ways especially in the inter-rows. These management practices may influence deeply soil properties and grapevine root development. Therefore, this...

This paper shows and compares the experimental results obtained by using a standard cone (10 cm 2) and a mini piezocone (2 cm 2). Tests were carried out at Calendasco (Piacenza, Italy) in a natural soil deposit mainly consisting of clayey-sandy silts. Grain size distribution with depth was also available. Other tests were carried out at Cavezzo (Mo...

A combined method was developed to forecast the spatial and the temporal probability of occurrence of rainfall-induced shallow landslides over large areas. The method also allowed to estimate the dynamic change of this probability during a rainfall event. The model, developed through a data-driven approach basing on Multivariate Adaptive Regression...

Data-driven methodologies are widely used for the reconstruction of shallow landslide susceptibility maps. The outputs of these models strictly depend on the type of landslide inventories used for the modelling. Thus, this work performed a deep analysis of the role of different inventories on the definition of shallow landslide susceptibility of a...

Grapevine root development can be susceptible to slope instabilities and different inter-row management can affect vine yard soil ecosystem. In this study the traditional techniques of tillage practices were evaluated.The microarthropod community was described by adaptation to soil life (epe-,hemi-and eu-edaphic forms). Molecular based methods was...

Prediction of landslide hazard risk at hill slope induced by intense rainfall requires the appropriate modeling of the interactions between soil and weather phenomena, leading to failure as well as a reliable prediction of post-failure dynamics. In the peculiar case of fast shallow landslides behaving like dense granular flows, a suitable modeling...

Rainfall-induced shallow landslides have frequently occurred in the last decade, especially during or after long-lasting rainfall events in the summer rainy period, leading to the destruction of infrastructure and casualties in the Ren River catchment of Qinba Mountain region, at the center region of China. In this area, superficial soils of clayey...

Seismic microzonation represents a basic tool for prevention activity planning and land management. An extensive and detailed microzonation study was performed with reference to the territory of the Municipality of Cavezzo, damaged during the seismic sequence hitting Emilia-Romagna Region, Northern Italy, in 2012. In this paper, we discuss the work...

In this paper, a systematic procedure to assess the feasibility of Advanced Differential Interferometric SAR (A-DInSAR) technique for landslide monitoring using SAR images acquired by Sentinel-1 sensors is presented. The methodology is named “Assessment of the advanced differentiaL interferometric synthetic aperture radar technique Feasibility for...

In areas with similar soil properties and geomorphological conditions, different land uses could promote or reduce the failure probability towards shallow landslides, especially due to differences in the reinforcement acted in the soil by plant roots. In this paper, root density, mechanical properties, and reinforcement provided by different land u...

Interpretation of land subsidence time-series to understand the evolution of the phenomenon and the existing relationships between triggers and measured displacements is a great challenge. Continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is a powerful signal processing method mainly suitable for the analysis of individual nonstationary time-series. CWT expands t...

Advanced Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (A-DInSAR) techniques and 3-D groundwater flow and geomechanical models are integrated to improve our knowledge about the Tertiary detritic aquifer of Madrid (TDAM). In particular, the attention is focused on the Manzanares-Jarama well field, located to the northwest of Madrid, which ex...

In this work, an innovative methodology to generate the automatic ground motion areas mapping is presented. The methodology is based on the analysis of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)-based displacement time series. The procedure includes two modules developed using the ModelBuilder tool (ArcGis). These modules allow to identify the ground motio...

This paper describes the implementation and use of a mechanical cone penetration test (CPTm) database for the evaluation of the liquefaction potential in some areas of Tuscany. More specifically, the database contains 4500 CPTm covering an area of 1787 square km and mainly concerns some coastal areas of Tuscany. Available simplified liquefaction ev...

Land subsidence severely threatens most of the coastal plains around the world where high productive industrial and agricultural activities and urban centers are concentrated. Coastal subsidence damages infrastructures and exacerbates the effect of the sea‐level rise at regional scale. Although it is a well‐known process, there is still much more t...

A novel methodological approach to calibrate and validate three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) groundwater flow and geomechanical models has been implemented using Advanced Differential Interferometric SAR (A-DInSAR) data. In particular, we show how A-DInSAR data can be effectively used to (1) constrain the model set-up in evaluating the area...

Cultivation of grapevines in sloping soils is very widespread all over the world, representing also a fundamental branch of the local economy of several hilly zones. Vineyards can be managed in different ways especially the inter-rows. These management practices may influence deeply soil properties and grapevine root development. Therefore, this wo...

Shallow landslides are very dangerous phenomena, widespread all over the world, which could provoke significant damages to buildings, roads, facilities, cultivations and, sometimes, loss of human lives. It is then necessary assessing the most prone zones in a territory which is particularly susceptible to these phenomena and the frequency of the ev...

Rainfall thresholds define the conditions leading to the triggering of shallow landslides over wide areas. They can be empirical, which exploit past rainfall data and landslide inventories, or physicallybased, which integrate slope physical–hydrological modeling and stability analyses. In this work, a comparison between these two types of threshold...

The study aims to present the first results of field surveys upon the debris/mud flows that hit the municipality of Bussoleno, Susa Valley, in the spring/summer 2018. They occurred after an unusually severe fire season occurred in autumn 2017 while in the spring of 2018 intense precipitation led to numerous instability phenomena. On April 29, 2018,...

Understanding the hydrological mechanism of rainfall-induced shallow landslides is critical to make reliable predictive assessments and to reduce risks of economic loss and fatalities. An integrated approach was identified by combining the field-based monitored hydrological data with a hydro-mechanical analysis, which can be utilized to better unde...

In this article we present a detailed litho-structural map of the Oltrepo Pavese, a sector of the Northern Apennines, Southern Lombardy, Italy. Lithology and geological structures are an important basis for different disciplines of Earth Sciences. In particular, for the assessment of earth surface processes such as soil erosion, mass movements, flo...

Cultivation of grapevines in sloping soils is very widespread all over the world, representing also fundamental branch of local economy of several hilly areas. Vineyards can be managed in different ways. Agronomical practices in inter-rows can be significantly different and may influence deeply the soil properties and the grapevine root development...

The zoning of a territory for liquefaction hazard at different geographical scales is one of the objectives of LIQUEFACT, the H2020 European project that initiated in May 2016 and will end in October 2019. The project also aims at addressing other aspects of liquefaction hazard and risk including the assessment and mitigation of damages to structur...

Liquefaction represents one of the effects that may occur during an earthquake. Several controlling factors may influence liquefaction occurrence. In particular, the thickness of the potentially liquefiable layers, the grain size of the sediments, the compaction degree and the interaction between different layers may strongly influence the phenomen...

Geological interpretation of ground deformation effects after the the termination of engineering works using Sentinel 1 data: the London case of study (UK)

Advanced Differential Interferometric Synthetic-Aperture Radar (A-DInSAR) technique has proven to be a significant tool to detect and monitor ground deformation over wide urbanized area for studying the displacement time series of buildings, roads, railways, dams and tunnels. London is a megacity of the United Kingdom experiencing a growing density...

Among natural hazards, earthquakes claim a large number of casualties and economical losses each year around the globe. Excessive deformations of ground surface caused by earthquakes are of great concern in civil engineering, human lives and the environment. Such ground deformations are often associated with a phenomenon of soil instability called...

In the most ancient wine area of the Controlled Denomination of Origin (DOC) “ OltrepòPavese ” in North-West Italy, foothills of the Apennine mountains, the soils of 14 representative vineyards managed for about 10 years with tillage (T) or natural grass-cover (G) or the alternation of the two methods between the rows (GT), were compared for their...

The identification of the triggering mechanism of rainfall-induced, shallow landslides requires a complete understanding of the hydro-mechanical response of soil, which can be represented through the trends of the degree of soil saturation. In this paper, multiple annual cycles of soil saturation obtained through field monitoring were used to valid...

Urbanization increases the pressure on land and ground water. Due to pressure on land and over extraction of the ground water for modernization and development, deformation of land increase. The traditional deformation monitoring techniques are costly and time taking. The Differential Interferometry Technique (DInSAR) has capability to monitor regi...

In this work, the Generalized Additive Model (GAM) technique was implemented for the landslide susceptibility assessment in the Gravegnola T. basin (Eastern Liguria, Italy), affected by many shallow landslides caused by the 25 October 2011 rainstorm. Nine morphological variables, river network, land use and geological settings were considered in GA...

In this paper, a new methodology was developed to automatically update Landslide state of Activity Maps by combining multi-temporal A-DInSAR data (LAMBDA). LAMBDA procedure was tested using ERS-1/2 (1992–2000), Radarsat-1/2 (2003–2009) and COSMO-SkyMed data (2011–2014) over an area of 2199 km2 located in Alps context of Piedmont region (north-weste...

The deformation structures (folds and fractures) affecting Monte Antola flysch formation in the area of Ponte Organasco (Northern Apennines-Italy) were analyzed by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Digital Photogrammetry (UAVDP). This technique allowed the realization of Digital Outcrop Models (DOMs) interpreted in a stereoscopic environment by collecting a...

Soil water content is a key parameter for representing water dynamics in soils. Its prediction is fundamental for different practical applications, such as identifying shallow landslides triggering. Support vector machine (SVM) is a machine learning technique, which can be used to predict the temporal trend of a quantity since training from past da...

It is well-known that the degree of saturation is a soil state condition able to represent the hydrological response of a shallow soil to weather conditions. One of the oldest models that referred on the degree of saturation to carry out the slope stability analysis at different scales, was the Shallow Landslide Instability (SLIP) Model. This paper...

The Lemeglio landslide is a deep-seated coastal landslide of the Liguria region (northeastern Italy) involving heterogeneous rock-masses formed by Miocene turbidide series, whose prevalent lithology varies from sandstones to mudrocks. It has been recognized since the end of the nineteenth century and characterized by a relict state of activity. Bes...