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This paper presents a case study about the detection of illegal dumps from optical satellite images in a large territory falling in the provinces of Naples and Caserta, Southern Italy. This location is also known with the term "Terra dei Fouchi" because in this area is particularly widespread the phenomenon of waste burning and, over the past decades, there have been many landfills of hazardous waste of industrial origin. In order to contrast this phenomenon, the government of the Campania Region organized some prevention, monitoring and repression activities. In particular, the monitoring activities are employed by periodic inspection of sites, which are often object of illegal deposits (former quarries, illegal dumps, as well as city and country roads). The periodic inspection is usually performed by patrols of the company SMA Campania (the in-house regional company, specialized in environmental protection), and law enforcement agencies. Since early warning of illegal and the quick characterization of the detected sites is a key factor for effective resource allocation in the fight against illegal waste dumping, as part of a project, the periodic monitoring inspections of the local environmental agency have been supported with multi-temporal satellite images. The detection has been performed via expert photo-interpretation in order to achieve a high level of accuracy and reliable maps. However, in order to reduce this time consuming task, a multi-features detection algorithm has been implemented. Detected sites have been then classified according to 4 major characteristics (type, state, location and activity) of the dumps. Moreover, a multi-temporal analysis has been performed and it allowed following the evolution of the phenomenon. This approach was effective in both finding new illegal spills (with associated macro classification) and to follow the evolution (in terms of extension and persistence) of landfills already found in the past.
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