Detection of Seasonal Deformation of Highway Overpasses Using the PS-InSAR Technique: A Case Study in Beijing Urban Area

Abstract

In urban areas, deformation of transportation infrastructures may lead to serious safety accidents. Timely and accurate monitoring of the structural deformation is critical for prevention of transportation accidents and assurance of construction quality, particularly in areas with regional land subsidence, such as the city of Beijing. In this study, we proposed a method for the detection of seasonal deformation of highway overpasses using the integration of persistent scatterers Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) techniques and seasonal indices, i.e., deformation concentration degree (DCD) and deformation concentration period (DCP) indices. Taking eastern Beijing urban area as a case study area, we first used the PS-InSAR technique to derive time series surface deformation based on 55 TerraSAR-X images during 2010–2016. Then, we proposed DCD and DCP indices to characterize seasonal deformation of 25 highway overpasses in the study area, with DCD representing to what degree the annual deformation is distributed in a year, and DCP representing the period on which deformation concentrates in the year. Our results showed that the maximum annual deformation rate reached −141.3 mm/year in Beijing urban area, and the PS-InSAR measurements agreed well with levelling measurements (R2 > 0.97). For PS pixels with DCD ≥ 0.3, the monthly deformation showed obvious seasonal patterns with deformation values during some months greater than those during the other months. DCP revealed that the settlement during autumn and winter was more serious than that in spring and summer. The seasonal patterns seemed to be related to the location, structure, and construction age of the overpasses. The upper-level overpasses, the newly constructed overpasses, and those located in the subsidence area (rate < −40 mm/year) tended to show a greater seasonal pattern. The seasonal deformation variations were also affected by groundwater-level fluctuation, temperature, and compressible layer.

Time-Series Analysis on Persistent Scatter-Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) Derived Displacements of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge (HZMB) from Sentinel-1A Observations

“…Thermal expansion of the infrastructures can be observed in the InSAR results, which have been reported by many previous studies [17][18][19][20]23,26]. For example, this phenomenon was noticed in displacements of the Rainbow Bridge and Lupu Bridge in Tianjin, as well as a highway bridge in Hebei, China [18][19][20].…”

“…In the field of infrastructure monitoring, the spaceborne InSAR technique has been gaining more and more popularity [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]; it has been reported to be applicable and effective in monitoring bridges more than once. For instance, Sousa and Basto reported that a deformation rate of about 20 mm/year had occurred before the collapse of a bridge in Italy, demonstrating the potential of MT-InSAR techniques for deformation detection in bridges [12].…”

Recent Ground Subsidence in the North China Plain, China, Revealed by Sentinel-1A Datasets

“…Similar to several areas around the world [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], the NCP has experienced rapid land subsidence in association with extensive groundwater withdrawal. Moreover, rapid urbanization, increased dynamic and static loads, and the development of underground spaces have also impacted the occurrence of land subsidence to various degrees [12][13][14][15], and these factors also contribute to land subsidence in the NCP [16][17][18][19][20]. Land subsidence threatens the safety of urban infrastructure, increases the risk of urban waterlogging, exacerbates the impacts of sea-level rise on coastal areas, and even affects regional water security.…”

Retrospective Study of Vertical Ground Deformation in Como, Northern Italy: Integration of Levelling and Psi Measurements

“…This powerful InSAR processing tool implemented in MATLAB, provides a flexible environment for the user to have full control of any technical aspect of PSI analysis. The software was successfully used by several research groups for linear and non-linear deformation monitoring in different applications, such as land subsidence (Fryksten and Nilfouroushan, 2019;Cando Jácome et al, 2020), infrastructures (Bakon et al, 2014;Lyu et al, 2020)…”