Moschillo, Raffaele

The 1980 Ms 6.9 Irpinia earthquake was responsible for the activation or reactivation of numerous gravitative deformations mainly hosted by clayey lithotypes, affecting wide areas of Benevento Province and the Sele and Ofanto R. Valleys. The case of Calitri offers valuable insights into a methodological approach to studying mass movements affecting human settlements. Post-earthquake investigations in Calitri involved extensive geognostic boreholes and in situ surveys, providing substantial data for lithological characterization and landslide modeling. Additionally, over the past two decades, satellite-based techniques have supported the mapping and characterization of ground deformations in this area, improving our understanding of spatiotemporal evolution. Despite these efforts, a detailed subsurface comprehensionof the tectono-stratigraphy and geometriesof gravity-induced deformation remains incomplete. This study aims to enhance our knowledge of gravity-driven deformations affecting urban areas by using deep-penetrating GroundPenetrating Radar (GPR) surveys to identify landslide-related structures, rupture surfaces, and lithological characterization of the involved lithotypes. The integration of GPR surveys with classical morphotectonic analysis led to the delineation of the main subsurface discontinuities (stratigraphy, tectonics, and gravity-related), correlating them with available geognostic data. This approach provided non-invasive, detailed insights into subsurface features and stands out as one of the rare case studies in Italy that employed the GPR method for landslide investigations.

Today, ground control points (GCPs) represent indispensable tools for products’ georeferencing in all the techniques concerning remote sensing (RS), particularly in monitoring activities from unmanned aircraft system (UAS) platforms. This work introduces an innovative tool, smart GCPs, which combines different georeferencing procedures, offering a range of advantages. It can serve three fundamental purposes concurrently: (1) as a drone takeoff platform; (2) as a base station, allowing the acquisition of raw global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data for post-processed kinematic (PPK) surveys or by providing real-time GNSS corrections for precision positioning; (3) as a rover in the network real-time kinematic (NRTK) mode, establishing its position in real time with centimetric precision. The prototype has undergone testing in a dedicated study area, yielding good results for all three geodetic correction techniques: PPK, RTK, and GCP, achieving centimeter-level accuracy. Nowadays, this versatile prototype represents a unique external instrument, which is also easily transportable and able to connect to the GNSS RING network, obtaining real-time positioning corrections for a wide range of applications that require precise positioning. This capability is essential for environmental applications that require a multitemporal UAS-based study. When the real-time RING data are accessible to the scientific community operating in RS surveying, this work could be a helpful guide for researchers approaching such investigations.

This study focuses on a very complex environment, namely the Ionian coast of the Basilicata region, Southern Italy, which includes different kinds of beaches, river mouths and built-up areas. This complex environment is used as a test case to analyze the time variability of the coastline using measurements that were remotely sensed by the satellite European Copernicus Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission. First, the accuracy of the coastline, extracted by the SAR, is discussed with respect to finer-spatial-resolution drone-based light detection and ranging (LIDAR) measurements. Then, a time series of SAR dual-polarimetric measurements acquired by the European Copernicus mission is used to discuss the time variability of the coastline of the area of interest in a time period spanning from 2015 to 2021. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the SAR-based coastline is better than 15 m, which is reasonably good precision for monitoring the erosion/accretion processes that characterize the area of interest at a moderate scale. The estimated time variability of the extracted coastline suggests a dominant erosion process, which is always within 60 m.

This study focuses on analyzing and monitoring urban subsidence, particularly in the city of Palermo, Italy. Land subsidence, induced by natural and human factors, poses threats to infrastructure and urban safety. Remote sensing (RS), specifically synthetic-aperture radar interferometry (In-SAR), is employed due to its ability to detect ground displacements over large areas with great precision. The persistent scatterer InSAR (PS-InSAR) technique is utilized to identify stable targets and track millimeter-level surface deformations. This research spans from October 2014 to October 2021, using Sentinel-1 satellite data to capture ground deformation from various angles. The findings are integrated into an accessible web app (ArcGIS) for local authorities that could be used aiding in urban planning and enhancing safety measures. This study’s results offer updated deformation maps, serving as an operational tool to support decision-making and community resilience, emphasizing risk awareness and responsible practices. This study highlights that the exponential expansion of urban areas, which does not take into account historical information, can gravely jeopardize both the integrity of urban infrastructure and the well-being of its inhabitants. In this context, remote sensing technologies emerge as an invaluable ally, used in monitoring and safeguarding the urban landscape.

INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Italy) is one of the institutions that studies and monitors the geophysical phenomena (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, etc.) that occur on Earth. During these events, it is essential to carry out a large, detailed and fast map of the aected areas. If we think of the diculties encountered during the mapping of the fault sources for the 2016 earthquake in central Italy, we can understand how the UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) can be a valid “low-cost” alternative to the traditional methods of surveys. These devices, thanks to precision instrumentation such as GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) receivers and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) control units, allow a detailed reconstruction of the investigated areas, especially for small-scale analysis applications. These aircraft are based on multiple technologies and show great investigative capabilities, therefore they must be considered as complete systems.Starting from these concepts, we have developed a low-cost RTK/PPK (Real Time Kinematic/Post Processing Kinematic) GNSS survey system on “commercial” UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), i.e. professional drones that are not created to be modified. We have demonstrated how the integration of a GNSS RTK/PPK module on commercial UAVs makes the system ecient for the reconstruction of a highly detailed and precise DEM (Digital Elevation Model), without using GCP (Ground Control Point), allowing to make precision measurements in areas that are dicult to explore and investigate. Indeed, the altimetric trends of the PPK processing without GCPs are perfectly comparable with those of the PVs (Verification Points) deriving from RTK analysis and sshow small acceptable deviations. The height dierences between PVs measurements and those deriving from the DEM in the same planar coordinates vary between a minimum of 1 cm and a maximum of 7.8 cm. Based on these results, we can state that the precision mapping with a drone equipped with an on-board GNSS module does not dier much from the technique that involves measuring GCP on the ground, in reality, it is comparable in terms of errors, even on the more dicult field of altitudes.

“Sotto i nostri piedi: i movimenti della Terra ieri e oggi” is a web application, based on cloud-gis technology, which was developed for the exhibition of the Genoa Science Festival in 2021. It collects a series of story maps and dashboards that tell and show the earthquakes and tsunamis of the past but also recent and in real time seismicity. Through some interactive interfaces this application allows you to work with visitors as in an online laboratory by discovering news, images, testimonies, maps and infographics on the earthquakes and tsunamis of yesterday and today. The journey that “Sotto i nostri piedi” proposes is divided into three stages: the first illustrates the seismicity of the last 40 years in Italy starting from traditional maps up to interactive maps and real-time seismicity dashboards. In the second one, we discover the propagation of seismic waves by looking at the SHAKEmovies of some of the most important seismic events recorded in recent years. Finally, in the third stage we travel between the earthquakes and tsunamis of the past that occurred in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea thanks to two dedicated story maps.

In this short note, we introduce a web application where the Record Sections, automatically created after a revised earthquake location, can be accessed. The Record Sections are graphical representations of the waveforms of seismic events in Distance-Time diagrams. They are created for each event occurring in the Euro-Mediterranean area with a magnitude greater than 2.8 and for which a definitive location is computed by the INGV surveillance service. The analysed stations belong to many European seismic networks whose waveforms are distributed through EIDA [European Integrated Data Archive, http://www.orfeus-eu.org/data/eida/]. The IT tool we have realized, described in this note, is a useful multipurpose instrument: it can be fruitfully employed both for research purposes, for a rapid quality control of seismic stations and also for education

Da venerdì 4 novembre a domenica 6 novembre 2022, si è tenuta una esercitazione nazionale denominata “Exe Sisma dello Stretto 2022” in un'area del territorio della Regione Calabria e della Regione Sicilia caratterizzata da una elevatissima pericolosità sismica. L’esercitazione è stata indetta e coordinata dal Dipartimento della Protezione Civile e aveva l’obiettivo di verificare la risposta operativa a un evento sismico significativo del Servizio Nazionale della Protezione Civile, di cui anche l’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia fa parte. Durante le tre giornate, l’INGV ha avuto modo di testare tutte le procedure che l’Istituto ha codificato a partire da quelle del “Protocollo di Ente per le emergenze sismiche e da maremoto”. Dopo che INGV ha dato l’avvio all’intera esercitazione simulando il terremoto di magnitudo MW 6.2 (ML 6.0) alle ore 09:00 UTC in provincia di Reggio Calabria (5 km a SW dal comune di Laganadi), e ha, quindi, inviato il messaggio per il potenziale maremoto con un livello di allerta arancione; inoltre, il Presidente INGV ha prontamente convocato l’Unità di Crisi e attivato tutti Gruppi Operativi. Questi ultimi, nell’ambito dello scenario esercitativo, hanno verificato che i flussi di comunicazione interna e tutte le attività necessarie in emergenza sismica, presenti nei relativi protocolli operativi, risultassero rispettati. L’obiettivo primario dell’esercitazione è stato quindi quello di validare le attività previste e di aggiornare il personale afferente ai Gruppi Operativi stessi. Tra di essi, SISMIKO, che rappresenta il GO dedicato al coordinamento delle reti sismiche mobili INGV in emergenza, nelle settimane precedenti l’esercitazione ha predisposto tutte le attività che intendeva testare, descrivendole brevemente nel Documento d’impianto INGV e con maggior dettaglio in quello del Gruppo Operativo. A pochi giorni dalla chiusura dell’esercitazione, un terremoto di magnitudo ML 5.7 (MW 5.5) registrato alle ore 06:07 UTC del 09 novembre 2022 ha spostato l’attenzione dalla simulazione alla realtà.

Il 09 novembre 2022 alle ore 06:07 UTC (07:07 ora italiana) un terremoto di magnitudo ML 5.7 (MW 5.5) è stato localizzato dal sistema di sorveglianza sismica dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). L'epicentro è stato localizzato nel Mar Adriatico ad una distanza di circa 30 km dalla costa marchigiana in provincia di Pesaro e Urbino, a circa 31 km dalla città di Fano e 35 km dal capoluogo di provincia Pesaro. Il mainshock è stato seguito da una replica di ML 5.2 a un minuto di distanza. I due terremoti sono stati ben avvertiti in tutta la regione Marche, e anche in tutto il centro Italia fino a Roma e nelle regioni del nord Italia. Il Presidente dell’INGV, come previsto nel Protocollo di Ente per le emergenze sismiche e da maremoto, ha prontamente convocato l’Unità di Crisi e attivato tutti i Gruppi Operativi. Tra questi SISMIKO, che coordina le reti sismiche mobili INGV in emergenza, si è attivato immediatamente preparando la strumentazione necessaria per l’installazione di una rete sismica temporanea e per l’integrazione dei dati in acquisizione nel sistema di monitoraggio e sorveglianza sismica dell’INGV. Parallelamente alle attività di coordinamento e gestione dell’emergenza sono state attivate tutte le procedure inerenti la divulgazione (report, siti web, ecc) e l’analisi dei dati preliminari. La rete temporanea in emergenza è stata installata nelle prime 24 ore dalla scossa principale ad integrazione della rete sismica permanente dell’INGV in area epicentrale. La rete temporanea di SISMIKO, costituita da 8 stazioni sismiche trasmesse in tempo reale, ha permesso di migliorare il monitoraggio dell’evoluzione della sequenza, abbassando la soglia di detezione degli eventi sismici in area epicentrale e consentendo quindi una migliore localizzazione da parte del servizio di sorveglianza sismica nazionale. La gestione dell’emergenza sismica è avvenuta a pochi giorni di distanza dall’ esercitazione nazionale denominata “EXE Sisma dello Stretto 2022” svoltasi dal 4 al 6 Novembre 2022 nel territorio della Regione Calabria e della Regione Sicilia. L’esercitazione è stata coordinata dal Dipartimento della Protezione Civile. Le attività svolte durante EXE 2022 sono state per l’istituto, e in particolare per SISMIKO, propedeutiche per il buon esito di tutte le azioni messe in campo dall’INGV sin dai primi minuti dall’accadimento del mainshock del 9 Novembre.

The ML 5.8 earthquake that hit the island of Crete on 27 September 2021 is analysed with InSAR (Interferometry from Synthetic Aperture Radar) and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) data. The purpose of this work is to create a model with sufficient detail for the geophysical processes that take place in several kilometres below the earth’s surface and improve our ability to observe active tectonic processes using geodetic and seismic data. InSAR coseismic displacements maps show negative values along the LOS of ~18 cm for the ascending orbit and ~20 cm for the descending one. Similarly, the GNSS data of three permanent stations were used in PPK (Post Processing Kinematic) mode to (i) estimate the coseismic shifts, highlighting the same range of values as the InSAR, (ii) model the deformation of the ground associated with the main shock, and (iii) validate InSAR results by combining GNSS and InSAR data. This allowed us to constrain the geometric characteristics of the seismogenic fault and the slip distribution on it. Our model, which stands on a joint inversion of the InSAR and GNSS data, highlights a major rupture surface striking 214◦, dipping 50◦ NW and extending at depth from 2.5 km down to 12 km. The kinematics is almost dip-slip normal (rake −106◦), while a maximum slip of ~1.0 m occurred at a depth of ca. 6 km. The crucial though indirect role of inherited tectonic structures affecting the seismogenic crustal volume is also discussed suggesting their influence on the surrounding stress field and their capacity to dynamically merge distinct fault segments.