A new method for measuring deformation on volcanoes and other natural terrains using InSAR persistent scatterers

Abstract

[1] We present here a new InSAR persistent scatterer (PS) method for analyzing episodic crustal deformation in non-urban environments, with application to volcanic settings. Our method for identifying PS pixels in a series of interferograms is based primarily on phase characteristics and finds low-amplitude pixels with phase stability that are not identified by the existing amplitude-based algorithm. Our method also uses the spatial correlation of the phases rather than a well-defined phase history so that we can observe temporally-variable processes, e.g., volcanic deformation. The algorithm involves removing the residual topographic component of flattened interferogram phase for each PS, then unwrapping the PS phases both spatially and temporally. Our method finds scatterers with stable phase characteristics independent of amplitudes associated with man-made objects, and is applicable to areas where conventional InSAR fails due to complete decorrelation of the majority of scatterers, yet a few stable scatterers are present.

Application of persistent scatterers interferometry for surface displacements monitoring in N5E open pit iron mine using TerraSAR-X data, in Carajás Province, Amazon region

“…Besides, it provides precise information related to the displacements of the surface in question. These highly coherent targets, PSs, identified in multiple interferograms, allow to minimize and solve some of the problems related to the processing and the phase unwrapping, as well as a better discretization of the signals that occur in the interferometric phase, in addition to allowing the estimation and removal of orbital errors, and topography phase, deformation and atmosphere effects of the interferogram phase values, through their different behaviors in time and space Rocca 2001, Werner et al 2003;Hooper et al 2004).…”

Multiple sensors applied to monitorland subsidence in Central Taiwan

“…Thus, the multi-temporal InSAR (MTInSAR) techniques are developed to overcome the limitation of DInSAR technology. Currently, there are three categories of MT-InSAR approaches used to monitor land subsidence in Taiwan, such as persistent scatterersInSAR (PSI) (Hooper et al, 2004), Stanford method for persistent scatterers/multitemporal InSAR (StaMPS/MTI) (Hooper, 2008) and temporarily coherence point InSAR (TCPInSAR) (Zhang et al, 2011). In this study, we utilize TCPInSAR approach to measure the ground deformation in CRAF from 2007 to 2011 and to compare the TCPInSAR result with precise leveling data.…”

Integrated velocity field from ground and satellite geodetic techniques: application to Arenal volcano

“…Numerous methods exist for both 3-D point-based and temporal measurements, with the choice of method depending on the size of the data set and the complexity of the temporal deformation (e.g. Dong et al 1998;Berrocoso et al 2012;Fournier et al 2009, or for InSAR Berardino et al 2002Hooper et al 2004). …”

“…Figure A1. Corrections of (a) angles and (b) height difference observations before an adjustment within a topocentric reference frame (a cartesian reference frame oriented with the direction of the gravity at its origin) (Guillaume et al 2008) Since the topocentric reference system is rigorously Cartesian, GNSS, angles and height differences must be adjusted to compensate for the differences in plumb-line orientation between measurement sites (Hofmann-Wellenhof & Moritz 2005). The transformation of the GNSS measurements within a global 3-D cartesian reference system (e.g.…”