Documenting Decadal Scale Landslide Movement Using Sequential Lidar and Structure from Motion Digital Elevation Models in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Metropolitan Area

Abstract:

Large, slow-moving landslides in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Metropolitan Area may be intermittently active for years and require regular monitoring if they threaten urban infrastructure and property. We measured topographic changes reflecting the movement of two slow-moving landslides over the period of 13 years. One of the landslides is a deep-seated rotational slump. The other is a thin translational debris-slide. We used differences between pairs in a series of 1) digital elevation models (DEMs) from county-wide airborne lidar surveys in 2007 and 2012 and 2) structure-from-motion DEMs derived from imagery acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in 2019 and 2020. In addition to documenting vertical DEM changes of up to 4.3 meters for the slump and 3 meters for the debris slide over a period of 13 years, we evaluated the repeatability of UAV-derived DEMs obtained from multiple flights over short time spans during which no change should have occurred.