Tight integration of GPS observations and persistent scatterer InSAR for detecting vertical ground motion in Hong Kong

A method for tightly integrating GPS observations and the persistent scatterer (PS) interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is proposed to detect vertical ground motion in Hong Kong, China. The tropospheric zenith wet delays (ZWD) derived from GPS observations at sites in the SAR scenes are used first to model and correct for the tropospheric effects in the interferograms generated from the SAR images. The vertical motion rates (VMR) of the GPS sites determined based on the continuous GPS observations obtained at the sites are then used as constraints in the PS InSAR solutions to further enhance the quality of the solutions. Data from 12 continuous tracking GPS sites in Hong Kong and 8 ENVISAT ASAR images acquired during 2006–2007 are used to demonstrate the application of the proposed method. The results from the example show that the method is capable of detecting accurately the vertical ground motion.