**4. Summary**

In-depth knowledge of glacier behaviour is fundamental for glaciological risk evaluation and management and it permits to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies against the cryosphere change provoked by global warming. To achieve this aim, data collection about the current glacier state is of primary importance, but the harsh mountain environment makes the survey activities difficult. Measurements from aerospace platforms are affected by complex geometries and might not provide sufficient spatiotemporal resolution, especially when high acquisition rates (i.e. minutes to hours) are necessary. Therefore, ground-based systems are often the most suitable solution. Nevertheless, impervious areas where glaciers are usually located entail the use of high financial and human efforts, as well as potential risks to access the investigated area. Therefore, remote sensing systems represent the best cost-benefit ratio and they are commonly adopted for glacier monitoring. Considering the possible adverse conditions (e.g. extreme meteorology, steep slopes, long sensor-to-target distance, natural hazards) that can occur during the survey activities, ad hoc technologies and methods must be developed. The glacial complex formed of the Planpincieux and Grandes Jorasses glaciers represents an outstanding site where different close-range remote sensing approaches have been experimented, in a heterogeneous Alpine glacier environment. Here, the combined use of multiple sensors proved to be a valuable tool to collect complementary information that allowed improving the understanding of the current state and recent evolution of the glacial area.

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**Author details**

Daniele Giordan1

Italy, Torino, Italy

Aosta, Italy

and Danilo Godone1

, Niccolò Dematteis1

2 Safe Mountain Foundation, Courmayeur, Italy

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: niccolo.dematteis@irpi.cnr.it

\*, Fabrizio Troilo2

1 Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, National Research Council of

3 Struttura Assetto Idrogeologico Bacini Montani, Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

, Valerio Segor3

*Close-Range Sensing of Alpine Glaciers DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92841* *Close-Range Sensing of Alpine Glaciers DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92841*

*Glaciers and the Polar Environment*

**4. Summary**

**Figure 11.**

recent evolution of the glacial area.

In-depth knowledge of glacier behaviour is fundamental for glaciological risk evaluation and management and it permits to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies against the cryosphere change provoked by global warming. To achieve this aim, data collection about the current glacier state is of primary importance, but the harsh mountain environment makes the survey activities difficult. Measurements from aerospace platforms are affected by complex geometries and might not provide sufficient spatiotemporal resolution, especially when high acquisition rates (i.e. minutes to hours) are necessary. Therefore, ground-based systems are often the most suitable solution. Nevertheless, impervious areas where glaciers are usually located entail the use of high financial and human efforts, as well as potential risks to access the investigated area. Therefore, remote sensing systems represent the best cost-benefit ratio and they are commonly adopted for glacier monitoring. Considering the possible adverse conditions (e.g. extreme meteorology, steep slopes, long sensor-to-target distance, natural hazards) that can occur during the survey activities, ad hoc technologies and methods must be developed. The glacial complex formed of the Planpincieux and Grandes Jorasses glaciers represents an outstanding site where different close-range remote sensing approaches have been experimented, in a heterogeneous Alpine glacier environment. Here, the combined use of multiple sensors proved to be a valuable tool to collect complementary information that allowed improving the understanding of the current state and

*Data integration of DIC and RTS measurements. The image depicts the spatially distributed daily deformation of the Whymper Serac front (coloured dots) and the surface displacement direction measured by the TRS in correspondence with the prism P3-2017. The right plot reports the displacement trend provided by the RTS.*

**136**
