On the Effect of Interferometric Pairs Selection for Measuring Fast Moving Landslides

Michael Foumelis (1) , Daniel Raucoules (1) , Bastien Colas (1) , Marcello De Michele (1)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)

The systematic availability of data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, allows redundancy of pairs considered during interferometric processing. In the present work the effect of DInSAR pairs' selection on the interferometric estimates, especially for the case of relatively fast moving landslides, is investigated. Interferometric findings over a well-monitored site are validated by in-situ geodetic measurements. It was documented that significant underestimation of motion occurs for DInSAR solutions utilizing pairs covering larger temporal spans, while displacement patterns are generally maintained. The above fact is attributed mainly to the magnitude of cumulated motion at temporally long interferograms, exceeding the physical limit of SAR interferometric techniques, with pronounced underestimation issues introduced. The need for an a priori knowledge of the expected motion rates for the optimum selection of interferometric combinations for measuring ground displacements is underlined.

Keywords: Synthetic aperture radar; Interferometry; Terrain factors; Motion measurement; Displacement measurement; Satellites; Extraterrestrial measurements; geomorphology; geophysical techniques; radar interferometry; remote sensing by radar; synthetic aperture radar; interferometric pairs selection; Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission; interferometric processing; DInSAR pairs; interferometric estimates; relatively fast moving landslides; well-monitored site; in-situ geodetic measurements; DInSAR solutions; displacement patterns; cumulated motion; temporally long interferograms; SAR interferometric techniques; expected motion rates; optimum selection; interferometric combinations; Copernicus Sentinel-1; DinSAR; Interferometric pairs; Landslides; Fast motion

Domains: Earth Sciences

Michael Foumelis, Daniel Raucoules, Bastien Colas, Marcello De Michele. On the Effect of Interferometric Pairs Selection for Measuring Fast Moving Landslides. IGARSS 2019 - 2019 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Jul 2019, Yokohama, Japan. pp.9614-9617, ⟨10.1109/IGARSS.2019.8900566⟩. ⟨hal-03707928⟩