Preface "LIDAR and DEM techniques for landslides monitoring and characterization"

The collection of the 2008 EGU contributions presented in this special issue covers these various facets of the HRDEM related landslide research, including some of the first applications on cutting-edge topics such as monitoring or mobile scanning: Trevisani et al. (2009) use an airborne HRDEM to develop a quantitative spatial continuity index, based on a directional variography, to characterize and map the morphological features in a mixed environment of screes, debris flows, rockfalls and snow avalanches deposits in the Dolomite. Sturzenegger and Stead (2009) compare and combined terrestrial LIDAR and photogrammetry to characterize rock mass discontinuities, stressing the effects of the observation scales on orientation and persistence measurements. Both techniques are applied to the site of Franck slide (Alberta, Canada).