Valentina Macchiarulo

Delft University of Technology | TU · Department of Geoscience and Engineering

On 14th August 2021, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the Tiburon Peninsula in the Caribbean nation of Haiti, approximately 150 km west of the capital Port-au-Prince. Aftershocks up to moment magnitude 5.7 followed and over 1,000 landslides were triggered. These events led to over 2,000 fatalities, 15,000 injuries and more than 137,000 structural...

Ageing stock and extreme weather events pose a threat to the safety of infrastructure networks. In most countries, funding allocated to infrastructure management is insufficient to perform systematic inspections over large transport networks. As a result, early signs of distress can develop unnoticed, potentially leading to catastrophic structural...

Worldwide, transport infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to ageing-induced deterioration and climate-related hazards. Oftentimes inspection and maintenance costs far exceed available resources, and numerous assets lack any rigorous structural evaluation. Space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) is a powerful remote-sensing...

Structural deformation monitoring is crucial for the identification of early signs of tunnelling-induced damage to adjacent structures and for the improvement of current damage assessment procedures. Satellite multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (MT-InSAR) techniques enable measurement of building displacements over time with mi...

The implementation of effective and sustainable Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems for the evaluation of infrastructure conditions is critical to address the deterioration and damage experienced by structures worldwide. Given the vast number of structures involved, resorting to traditional in-situ visual inspections and data gathering metho...

Thousands of bridges worldwide face growing risks due to aging materials, increased traffic loads, and climate change-induced weather extremes. Managing these assets is financially demanding, necessitating prioritisation strategies for interventions. Consequently, innovative approaches are urgently required to evaluate the structural conditions of...

Earthquakes have devastating effects on densely urbanised regions, requiring rapid and extensive damage assessment to guide resource allocation and recovery efforts. Traditional damage assessment is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and faces challenges in covering vast affected areas, often limiting timely decision-making. Space-borne synthetic...

Accurate and rapid post-earthquake structural damage assessment is of vital importance for humanitarian relief. Remote sensing techniques have the potential to map large areas with reduced data latency but are limited by several factors, including accuracy (compared to in-situ monitoring campaigns) and data acquisition frequency. Current damage ass...

On the 25th April 2015 a magnitude 7.8Mw struck Nepal, followed by two strong aftershocks on the 26 th April and 12 th May (6.7Mw and 7.3Mw, respectively). Over 9000 people were killed, 22,000 injured with over 500,000 homes either damaged or destroyed, resulting in economic loses of over US$7 Billion. A key component of understanding the resilienc...

In May 2022, the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) revisited Nepal to assess the progress made in implementing the recovery program following the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. The 7.8Mw earthquake, and the 6.7Mw and 7.3Mw aftershocks, resulted in the loss of over 9,000 lives, while 22,000 people were injured. Additionally, more than...

Earthquake-induced landslides have both short-term and long-term impacts, the former immediately disrupting buildings, infrastructure and earthquake emergency response, and the latter affecting the landscape. This research evaluates the applicability of remote sensing techniques to firstly assess the immediate impact of earthquake induced landslide...

Recovery is a complex, multidimensional, long-term process of restoration of living conditions after a disaster. Memorial days of disasters represent an opportunity to evaluate the progress of these recovery processes. We evaluated Nepal's recovery progress based on text data posted on Twitter and Instagram from March 5th to May 2nd, 2020. This per...

On April 25 2015, at 11:56 local time, Mw 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people, injuring 22,000, and leaving millions homeless. Seven years later, the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) deployed an earthquake return mission to monitor changes in community resilience, recovery, and reconstruction progress. A...

Recovery is a complex multidimensional long-term process of restoration of living conditions after a disaster. Memorial days of disasters represent an opportunity to evaluate the progress of these recovery processes. We evaluated Nepal's recovery progress based on text data posted on Twitter and Instagram from March 5th to May 2nd, 2020. This perio...

On April 25 2015, at 11:56 local time, Mw 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people, injuring 22,000, and leaving millions homeless. Seven years later, the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) deployed an earthquake return mission to monitor changes in community resilience, recovery, and reconstruction progress. A...

After an earthquake, a rapid identification of the damaged building stock is crucial to prioritise rescue operations, ensure primary services to the most affected regions and support reconstruction. Whilst in-situ reconnaissance missions provide invaluable data on the intensity and distribution of earthquake-induced structural damage, the process o...

Remote reconnaissance missions are promising solutions for the assessment of earthquake-induced structural damage and cascading geological hazards. Space-borne remote sensing can complement in-field missions when safety and accessibility concerns limit post-earthquake operations on the ground. However, the implementation of remote sensing technique...

The deterioration of ageing infrastructure assets and the risk of damaging surrounding structures during new construction are major concerns for the transport industry worldwide. Whilst, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) could assist the lifecycle management of existing assets and the assessment of structures adjacent to large construction project...

Ageing stock and extreme weather events pose a threat to the safety of infrastructure networks. In most countries, funding allocated to infrastructure management is insufficient to perform systematic inspections over large transport networks. As a result, early signs of distress can develop unnoticed, potentially leading to catastrophic structural...

Worldwide, transport infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to ageing-induced deterioration and climate-related hazards. Oftentimes inspection and maintenance costs far exceed available resources, and numerous assets lack any rigorous structural evaluation. Space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) is a powerful remote-sensing...

In western countries, thousands of infrastructure assets have exceeded their intended design life and need continuous monitoring. Space-borne Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radars (InSAR) are capable of wide-area monitoring, providing inexpensive and high-density measurements of buildings and infrastructure deformations with a millimetre-scale...