Capabilities of the GNSS Precise Point Positioning Technique for Landslide Monitoring

Global Navigation Satellite Systems signals are currently used in monitoring very slow changes in significant natural features which are potentially risky or worth of a careful attention, like incoming landslides, sites of subsidence, glaciers. This activity is generally carried out by exploiting the differences among the signals received at several sites and by making use of the phase observable of GNSS signals. This study is intended to shortly highlight the capabilities of a novel technique, the precise point positioning, which does not require the difference operation and still based on the signal phase, leads to accurate, simpler and cost effective measurements relevant to a single specific location. Precise point positioning has the potential to become a faster and cheaper technique to monitor landslide and slope failures phenomena, extending the interest also to not-too-large scale natural threats and geo-hazards and limit, by prompt alert, the risk of the associated catastrophic events.