Abstract
The town of Zafferana Etnea, located on the southeastern slope of Mt. Etna volcano (Italy), has been repeatedly threatened by lava flows in recent centuries. The last serious threat occurred during the 1991–1993 eruption, when the lava front came to a halt only 1.7 km from the centre of town. Morphostructural data derived from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) surveys carried out on Etna in 2005 have enabled us to evaluate the risk of lava invasion in a section (16 km2) of the Zafferana Etnea territory. Qualitative and quantitative results are obtained combining the information derived from LiDAR analysis with geological, morphological and structural data using geographic information systems technology (GIS). The study quantifies in unprecedented detail the areal extent and volume of forested and urban areas and its degree of exposure to different levels of hazard from future lava invasion. Nearly 52% of the urban texture fall into areas of moderate to high risk from lava invasion. Future land use planning should take these findings into account and promote new development preferentially in areas of lower risk.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aceves JF, Salgado JD, Blanco JL (2007) Vulnerability assessment in a volcanic risk evaluation in Central Mexico through a multi-criteria-GIS approach. Nat Hazards 40:339–356. doi:10.1007/s11069-006-0018-6
Andronico D, Lodato L (2005) Effusive activity at Mount Etna Volcano (Italy) during the 20th century: a contribution to volcanic hazard assessment. Nat Hazards 36:407–443. doi:10.1007/s11069-005-1938-2
Axelsson P (1999) Processing of laser scanner data—algorithms and applications. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 54:138–147. doi:10.1016/S0924-2716(99)00008-8
Baltsavias EP (1999) Airborne laser scanning: basic relations and formulas. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 54:199–214. doi:10.1016/S0924-2716(99)00015-5
Barberi F, Carapezza ML, Valenza M, Villari L (1993) The control of lava flow during the 1991–1992 eruption of Mt. Etna. J Volcanol Geotherm Res 56:1–34. doi:10.1016/0377-0273(93)90048-V
Behncke B, Neri M (2003) Cycles and trends in the recent eruptive behaviour of Mount Etna (Italy). Can J Earth Sci 40:1405–1411. doi:10.1139/e03-052
Behncke B, Neri M, Nagay A (2005) Lava flow hazard at Mount Etna (Italy): new data from a GIS-based study. In: Manga M, Ventura G (eds) Kinematics and dynamics of lava flows: Geological Society of America, special paper 396, pp 189–208. doi:10.1130/2005.2396(13)
Campbell JB (1996) Introduction to remote sensing, 2nd edn. Taylor and Francis, London
Cohen J (1960) A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educ Psychol Meas 20(1):37–46. doi:10.1177/001316446002000104
Congalton RG (1991) A review of assessing the accuracy of classifications of remotely sensed data. Remote Sens Environ 37:35–46. doi:10.1016/0034-4257(91)90048-B
Congalton RG, Green K (1993) A practical look at the sources of confusion in error matrix generation. Photogramm Eng Remote Sensing 59:641–644
Coren F, Sterzai P (2006) Radiometric correction in laser scanning. Int J Remote Sens 27:15–16, 3097–3104. doi:10.1080/01431160500217277
Environmental System Research Institute (ESRI) (1996) Arc View GIS. Redlands, 340 pp
Foody GM (2002) Status of land cover classification accuracy assessment. Remote Sens Environ 80:185–201. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(01)00295-4
ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica) (2008) Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. http://demo.istat.it/pop2007/index1.html
Kaasalainen S, Ahokas E, Hyyppa J, Suomalainen J (2005) Study of surface brightness from backscattered laser intensity: calibration of laser data. IEEE Geosci Remote Sens Lett 2:255–259. doi:10.1109/LGRS.2005.850534
Lirer L, Vitelli L (1998) Volcanic risk assessment and mapping in the Vesuvian area using GIS. Nat Hazards 17:1–15. doi:10.1023/A:1007977110144
Ma R (2005) DEM generation and building detection from Lidar data. Photogramm Eng Remote Sensing 71(7):847–854
Maas H, Vosselman G (1999) Two algorithms for extracting building models from raw laser altimetry data. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 54:153–163. doi:10.1016/S0924-2716(99)00004-0
Mazzarini F, Pareschi MT, Favalli M, Isola I, Tarquini S, Boschi E (2007) Lava flow identification and aging by means of LiDAR intensity: the Mt. Etna case. J Geophys Res 112:B02201. doi:10.1029/2005JB004166
Naesset E (1996) Conditional tau coefficient for assessment of producer’s accuracy of classified remotely sensed data. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 51:91–98. doi:10.1016/0924-2716(69)00007-4
Neri M, Mazzarini F, Tarquini S, Bisson M, Isola I, Behncke B, Pareschi MT (2008) The changing face of Mount Etna’s summit area documented with Lidar technology. Geophys Res Lett 35:L09305. doi:10.1029/2008GL033740
Pareschi MT, Cavarra L, Favalli M, Giannini F, Meriggi A (2000) GIS and volcanic risk management. Nat Hazards 21:361–379. doi:10.1023/A:1008016304797
Priestnall G, Jaafar J, Duncan A (2000) Extracting urban features from LiDAR digital surface models. Comput Environ Urban Syst 24:65–78. doi:10.1016/S0198-9715(99)00047-2
Romano R (1982) Succession of the volcanic activity in the Etnean area. Mem Soc Geol Ital 23:27–48
Scarpa R, Tilling RI (1996) The monitoring and mitigation of volcano hazards. Springer, New York, 841 pp
Soininen A (2003) TerraScan. User guide
Song JH, Han SH, Yu K, Kim YI (2002) Assessing the possibility of land-cover classification using lidar intensity data. Int Arch Photogramm Remote Sens Spat Inf Sci 34:259–262
Stehman SV, Czaplewski RL (1998) Design and analysis for thematic map accuracy assessment: fundamental principles. Remote Sens Environ 64:331–344. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(98)00010-8
Story M, Congalton RG (1986) Accuracy assessment: a user’s perspective. Photogramm Eng Remote Sensing 52:397–399
Wagner W, Ullrich A, Ducic V, Melzer T, Studnicka N (2006) Gaussian decomposition and calibration of a novel small-footprint full-waveform digitising airborne laser scanner. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 60:100–112. doi:10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2005.12.001
Wehr A, Lohr U (1999) Airborne laser scanning—an introduction and overview. ISPRS J Photogramm Remote Sens 54:68–82. doi:10.1016/S0924-2716(99)00011-8
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bisson, M., Behncke, B., Fornaciai, A. et al. LiDAR-based digital terrain analysis of an area exposed to the risk of lava flow invasion: the Zafferana Etnea territory, Mt. Etna (Italy). Nat Hazards 50, 321–334 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9346-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9346-7