The Potential of UAV Imagery for the Detection of Rapid Permafrost Degradation: Assessing the Impacts on Critical Arctic Infrastructure ...

Ground subsidence and erosion processes caused by permafrost thaw pose a high risk to infrastructure in the Arctic. Climate warming is increasingly accelerating the thawing of permafrost, emphasizing the need for thorough monitoring to detect damages and hazards at an early stage. The use of unoccup...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kaiser, Soraya, Boike, Julia, Grosse, Guido, Langer, Moritz
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.18452/29104
https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/29723
Description
Summary:Ground subsidence and erosion processes caused by permafrost thaw pose a high risk to infrastructure in the Arctic. Climate warming is increasingly accelerating the thawing of permafrost, emphasizing the need for thorough monitoring to detect damages and hazards at an early stage. The use of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) allows a fast and uncomplicated analysis of sub-meter changes across larger areas compared to manual surveys in the field. In our study, we investigated the potential of photogrammetry products derived from imagery acquired with off-the-shelf UAVs in order to provide a low-cost assessment of the risks of permafrost degradation along critical infrastructure. We tested a minimal drone setup without ground control points to derive high-resolution 3D point clouds via structure from motion (SfM) at a site affected by thermal erosion along the Dalton Highway on the North Slope of Alaska. For the sub-meter change analysis, we used a multiscale point cloud comparison which we improved by ...