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Abstract Technological progress in remote sensing has enabled digital representation of terrain through new techniques (e.g. digital photogrammetry) and instruments (e.g. 3D laser scanners). However, the use of old aerial images remains important in geosciences to reconstruct past landforms and detect long-term topographic changes. Administrations have recently expressed growing interest in sharing photogrammetric datasets on public repositories, providing opportunities to exploit these resources and detect natural and anthropogenic topographic changes. The SfM-MVS photogrammetric technique was applied to scanned historical black and white aerial photos of the Serra de Fontcalent (Alicante, Spain), as well as to recent high-quality digital aerial photos. Ground control points (GCPs) extracted from a LiDAR-derived three-dimensional point cloud were used to georeference the results with non-linear deformations. Two point clouds obtained with SfM-MVS were compared with the LiDAR-derived reference point cloud. Based on the result, the quality of the models was analysed through the comparison of the stages on stable areas, i.e., lands where no variations were detected, and active areas, with quarries, new infrastructures, fillings, excavations or new buildings. This study also indicates that errors are higher for old aerial photos (up to 5 m on average) than recent digital photos (up to 0.5 m). The application of SfM-MVS to open access data generated 3D models that enhance the geomorphological analysis, compared to stereophotogrammetry, and effectively detected activities in quarries and building of landfills. Highlights • Existing techniques enable the use of historical and recent aerial photos to reconstruct DEMS • An area of interest is reconstructed using historical printed and digital aerial photos, obtained from readily available resources, through Structure-from-Motion • An airbone LiDAR derived point cloud was used as a benchmark and for the extraction of ground control points • Three different stages of the landform were analysed and compared • The quality of the reconstruction and the capability of monitoring changes were analysed [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]