UAV survey method to monitor and analyze geological hazards: the case study of the mud volcano of Villaggio Santa Barbara, Caltanissetta (Sicily)

Abstract. Active geological processes often generate a ground surface response such as uplift, subsidence and faulting/fracturing. Nowadays remote sensing represents key tool for the evaluation monitoring of natural hazards. The use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in relation to observations hazards encompasses three main stages: pre- post-event data acquisition, monitoring, risk assessment. mud volcano Santa Barbara (Municipality Caltanissetta, Italy) dangerous site because on 11 August 2008 paroxysmal event caused serious damage infrastructures within range about 2 km. precursors events are uplift development structural features with dimensions ranging from centimeters decimeters. Here we present methodology deformation that may be precursory at volcano. This is based (i) collection, (ii) structure motion (SfM) processing chain (iii) M3C2-PM algorithm comparison between point clouds uncertainty analysis statistical approach. objective this detect activity by centimeter-scale precision temporal frequency 1–2 months.