An automated GIS-supported multi-temporal DInSAR approach for estimating foundation settlements and associated uncertainties of buildings in urban areas

A large-scale automated framework for monitoring the rigid-body motion of individual buildings using high-resolution dual-orbit satellite data is proposed. By implementing formulations by the authors, accurate motion components are extracted and uncertainties quantified from persistent scatterer displacement and localization errors. The primary innovation lies in resolving the single buildings’ structural behaviour across large territories integrating radar satellite and cartographic data, ensuring that targets are attributed to their corresponding buildings. The methodology is applied to an area of 70 km 2 in Modena, Italy, exploiting COSMO-SkyMed data to identify buildings exhibiting anomalous behaviour compared to the surroundings. Statistics and uncertainties of the estimated motion components across the entire building population are examined and further analyses are performed on buildings showing anomalous trends to identify reliable outliers. The methodology proved robust against the challenges of high-density urban layouts and small-building footprints, successfully balancing efficiency and efficacy in the territorial-scale analysis of individual structures.