Territorial scale monitoring of civil infrastructures through remote sensing

The work arises from the evidence of recent collapses of bridges in Italy and around the world due to aging, lack of a proper monitoring system, increasing level of traffic and climate change. It is here proposed a framework for the continuous monitoring and protection of bridges and viaducts. With this purpose, an attempt to use the InSAR remote sensing technique for monitoring of structural changes of the artworks is evaluated. This technique makes possible the detection of vertical displacements to check potential instabilities, such that ground and structural investigations can be activated. The technique involves the application of the multitemporal InSAR process to a series of radar images over the same region. The following methodology is proposed to involve inspection technologies, in relation to life cycle costs and the expected technical and functional lifespan of a structure. A proper strategy is proposed based on the analysis of the displacements: a case study of a bridge located in the province of La Spezia (Italy) is presented. In this example data from high resolution satellite COSMO-SkyMed imagery are managed. The SAR images are acquired from ASI and subsequently elaborated with StaMPS PSI interferometric process. From this example some indications for the ongoing monitoring of the road infrastructures are drawn.