Remote sensing and interdisciplinary approach for studying volcano environment and activity

Abstract

Remote sensing (RS), also known as “Earth Observation (EO)”, is a well-established methodology formultidisciplinary applications and represents a neuralgic tool both for research and didactics, since it makes itpossible not only to obtain very useful and interesting data and information but also to implement and make useof an integrated approach for collecting inputs from different sources, processing and interpreting them andpresenting the results through a variety of multimedia outputs. That is obviously true also in the case of volcanicenvironments and activities, in the quiescence, activity and post-event phases. During the last years, theapplications of satellite and aerial images, generated from data acquired in different spectral bands, namely in thevisible, infrared and microwave parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, have enormously increased. Thus, in thispaper, after a brief framework about some basic elements of remote sensing, we above all provide a literaryreview, underlying some important examples which permit us to develop interdisciplinary approaches and tohighlight different fields of application. Then, after having provided some input in a didactic perspective, wesynthetically describe the main peculiarities and kind of activities that characterise some volcanoes, for whichthe European Space Agency (ESA-ESRIN) has provided relevant images. Then, for each volcano, we proposean interpretive analysis of these images, supported by the previous explanations, in order to propose a possiblescheme of referral and some guidelines to define a geographical and interdisciplinary framework aimed atshowing new didactic and research horizons, where theoretical, methodological and applicative knowledge andskills converge, collaborating in a socially useful operative field.