SCC0937 - REMOTE SENSING FOR GEOSCIENCES AND GIS

courses

ID:

SCC0937

Duration (hours):

72

CFU:

SSD:

GEOLOGIA STRUTTURALE

Year:

2025

Date/time interval

Primo Semestre (22/09/2025 - 19/12/2025)

Course Objectives

Teaching objectives
This course includes an introduction to the main techniques of remotely-sensed data acquisition and interpretation, in particular focusing on environmental sciences applications. An introduction to GIS conceptual model as well as methods for spatial data representation and analysis will be offered during the course.
Expected outcomes
The student will be able to:
1. manage and analyze imagery from both active and passive remote sensing missions,
2. calculate radiometric indexes and build RADAR interferograms.
3. to handle vector and raster data in a GIS environment,
4. perform spatial analysis and interpolate point data.

Course Prerequisites

Knowledge of physics and geology is a suggested background requirement and, possibly, statistics. English language knowledge is a requisite as well. It would be useful to have attended before a basic introduction to GIS and passive remote sensing.

Teaching Methods

Lessons are basically active lectures, held in one University seat and broadcasted on the other one. Some lectures include some practice on sample data (LANDSAT, SAR scenery and hyperspectral images, stereopaired aerial photographs etc.), using open source software (QGIS, ESA -SENTINEL2 TOOLBOX , CLOUDCOMPARE)

Assessment Methods

Student evaluation will be based on a written test followed by an oral examination. The written test will be based on the theoretical content of the course. During the oral examination a hypothetical case study will be discussed with the student. An examination held in this way offers both the opportunity to test student’s knowledge of the course content and to drive the student to develop specific skills on a) analysis of complex problems, b) the development of new and original research approach and c) good communications. Both the tests will be evaluated with a mark from 1 to 30 (30/30).

The final mark will be obtained from the weighted sum of the two parts, according to the following:
Written test: 50%
Oral exam: 50%

Main topics are:

PART I – GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM – GIS (tot 16 hours)
01. Introduction to GIS (2h)
02. Data management and representation (2h)
03. Data analysis– DB & querying (2h)
04. Spatial analysis (6h)
05. Introduction to geostatistics – interpolation techniques (4h)

PART II – ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING AND INTERFEROMETRY (tot 8 hours)
01. Remote sensing basics (2h)
02. Optical physics 101 (2h)
03. Sensors and satellite missions (2h)
04. Active sensors (6h)
05. SAR and RADAR Interferometry (12 h)

PART III – LAB of PHOTOGRAMMETRY (tot. 16 hours)
01. Basic principles and applications (16 h)
02. LAB EXERCISES IN PHOTOGRAMMETRY (16 h)

Course Language

english/italian

More information

The slides of the course will be uploaded on the University e-learning website as well as all the sample data and SW used during the course.

The following textbooks are strongly suggested:

Flores-Anderson, A. I., Herndon, K. E., Thapa, R. B., & Cherrington, E. (2019). The SAR handbook: Comprehensive methodologies for forest monitoring and biomass estimation (No. MSFC-E-DAA-TN67454).

Federica MIGLIACCIO, Daniela CARRION - Sistemi informativi territoriali: principi e applicazioni – Seconda edizione. UTET., pp.412.