DInSAR-based fully remote assessment of building damage

Abstract Satellite-based Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is recently used in different civil engineering fields, ranging from the monitoring of the serviceability displacements of structures and infrastructures during the time up to damage detection. Several studies aimed at developing post-processing methodologies of data coming from satellite acquisitions around the earth were recently published in the technical and scientific literature. In most cases, they offer a partial perspective—that of the specialists—and lack of detailed and informed validation and interpretation from a civil engineering standpoint. This paper paid the attention on the potentialities of synthetic aperture-radar imagery for fully remote structural damage detection and assessment of structures based on differential displacement analysis. It is proposed an operational workflow collecting methods, procedures and tools supporting building damage assessment remotely, providing also a practice-oriented tool for engineers engaged into diagnostic activities. The methodology integrates web-based tools aimed at inspections and structural features detection with satellite measure coming from freely available or proprietary platforms—defining data post-processing and its representation and interpretation—aimed at damage detection and assessment of buildings subjected to differential displacements. A real-world application concerning a building located in Rome (Italy) was used to explore and discuss in detail the integration of open web platform–based data collection with satellite interferometry measurements, highlighting the limitations and potential of this approach in the remote damage assessment of buildings.