Preliminary study of the surface ground displacements in the Crati Valley (Calabria) by means of InSAR data

We applied the multi-temporal Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) InSARtechnique to investigate the ground displacements in the Crati Valley(Calabria, Southern Italy). The SBAS technique application to imagedata sets of the European Space Agency (ESA) Envisat satellite from2003 to 2010, allowed us to obtain the displacement time series andthe mean ground velocity map of the Crati Valley. We observed theexistence of vertical displacements with velocity up to ~ -7 mm/yr inthe central sector of the valley and the prevalence of horizontaldeformation ranging from ~ -10 (eastward displacement) to ~10mm/yr (westward displacement) along its sides. The subsidenceprocesses have been correlated to tectonics and to the compaction ofthe recent sedimentary infilling of the valley with locally contributiondue to the diffuse and fast urbanization. Along East and West sides thewidespread landslides are considered the main responsible of thehorizontal displacements.