Pre-, co-, and post- rockslide analysis with ALOS/PALSAR imagery: a case study of the Jiweishan rockslide, China

Abstract

Abstract. On 5 June 2009, a catastrophic rockslide debris flow occurred at the crest of the Jiweishan range, Chongqing Municipality, China, killing 74 people and injuring an additional eight. We use L-band ALOS/PALSAR imagery to address landslide processes before, during and after the slide. We employ three different SAR methods, i.e., short baseline subsets (SBAS) interferometric SAR (InSAR), SAR backscattering intensity change, and InSAR stacking algorithm, to study any ground deformation before the rockslide, investigate the affected area, and calculate the topographic change by this slide, respectively. First, continuous deformation has been observed based on the available ALOS/PALSAR InSAR imagery during June and December 2007. Second, the area affected by the landslide can be inferred based on changes in SAR backscattering intensity as well as surface topography, with an estimated area of 0.47 million m2. Last, an InSAR-derived post-slide digital elevation model has allowed us to estimate surface height changes due to the slide, reaching about −80 m at the source region and about 60 m in the deposit region, respectively. Our InSAR-derived estimates have been validated using in situ data and 3-D lidar measurements.

A constrained small baseline subsets (CSBAS) InSAR technique for multiple subsets

“…Del Ventisette et al, 2013;Deng et al, 2016;Hu, Li, Ding, Zhu, & Sun, 2013;Kim, Lu, Jia, & Shum, 2015) and landslides (e.g. Tong & Schmidt, 2016;Zhao, Kang, Zhang, Lu, & Li, 2018;Zhao, Lu, Zhang, & de La Fuente, 2012;Zhao et al, 2016Zhao et al, , 2013.…”

Landslide detection based on height and amplitude differences using pre- and post-event airborne X-band SAR data

“…Moreover, polarimetric SAR data have been studied for terrain and land use classification. Various studies utilizing SAR data for landslide detection and characterization have been reported, even for these ten years (e.g., Cao et al 2008;Liao and Shen 2009;Christophe et al 2010;Dong et al 2011;Kawamura et al 2011;Furuta and Sawada 2013;Zhao et al 2013;Liu and Yamazaki 2015;Shibayama et al 2015;Tang et al 2015;Plank et al 2016).…”

“…One of the advantages of the former is that they can treat surface changes or movements smaller than the wavelength of a SAR system. For example, Zhao et al (2013) analyzed the L-band Advanced Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array-type L-band SAR (PALSAR) using the short baseline subset (SBAS) InSAR. They detected pre-rockslide movement of less than 50 cm within 184 days for the 2009 Jiweshan rockslide in China.…”

“…The second is to utilize more accurate DEM datasets. For example, to generate a height change map for the 2009 Jiweshan rockslide, Zhao et al (2013) generated a SAR DEM by stacking several post-event ALOS InSAR data and then subtracted Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) DEM from the obtained SAR DEM. They reported that the accuracy of their height change map is approximately 14 m. Tang et al (2015) also generated a height change map and performed a volumetric estimation for the 2008 Wenjiagou landslide using SRTM and SAR DEM calculated from TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X.…”

Innovative analysis and use of high‐resolution DTMs for quantitative interrogation of Earth‐surface processes

“…In terrestrial subaerial geomorphology lidar is the remote sensing technique that has most recently contributed the most. Other techniques such as SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) offer opportunities to further investigate Earth surface processes such as landsliding (Roering et al ., ; Bovenga et al ., ; Berti et al ., ; Raucoules et al ., ; Zhao et al ., ) and to analyse river bed morphology (Marcus and Fonstad, ).…”