Monitoring of an Alpine Glacier by Means of Ground-Based SAR Interferometry

Spaceborne differential synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry has been proven to be a powerful tool in monitoring environmental phenomena and, in particular, in observing glaciers and retrieving information about their surface topography and dynamics. In the last decade, the use of this technique has been successfully extended from space to ground-based observations as a tool for monitoring, on a smaller scale, single landslides, unstable slopes, and more recently, areas covered by snow but not yet glaciers. In this letter, the results of an experimental activity carried out to evaluate the potential of ground-based microwave interferometry to estimate the velocity of an unstable area belonging to a glacier is reported. This experiment demonstrated the possibility of remotely monitoring surface displacements of the monitored glacier up to a distance of about 3 km even if, due to the lack of ground truths on the observed area, the data interpretation must be carefully worked out.