Remote detection and analysis of mass movements in the vicinity of the Three Gorges Dam/Yangtze River/China

As the biggest water conservancy project in China, the Three Gorges Project attracts more and more attention in the world. The length of the reservoir bank, the reservoir capacity, the number of resettlements and ecological influence are matchless up to now. A great number of the geological hazards such as landslide and rock-fall were developed along the banks of the Yangtze River, and many of them are in an active stage at present. In this context, we focused at methodological and conceptual strategies that allow the correlation between recent mass movements with associated soils and lithologies, developed slopes, vegetation coverage and rainfall data. The D-InSAR method based on Envisat-SAR and TerraSAR-X data was applied to monitor movements and optical data for the detection and differentiation of varying soils and rock types as well as the vegetation canopies. The results provide essential contributions to the estimation of the risk potential and thus, to the safety and future usability of the Yangtze River banks.