Brief Communication: Use of multicopter drone optical images for landslide mapping and characterization

Abstract. The Department of Earth Sciences of Florence (DST) has developed a new type of drone chassis., Several survey campaigns were performed in Ricasoli village, in the Upper Arno river Valley (Tuscany, Italy) with the drone equipped with an optical camera, to understand the possibility of this rising technology to map and to characterize landslides. The aerial RGB images were analysed and combined using SfM (Structure from Motion) software. The comparative analysis of the obtained DTMs allowed an accurate reconstruction and mapping of the detected landslides. The collected data also allowed to precisely detect some slope portions prone to failure and to evaluate the area and volume of the involved masses.