Integration of digital elevation data scanning 3D and interferometric SAR systems

This work concerns the surface ´change detection´ by means of differential digital elevation model (D_DEM) techniques, based on laser scanning 3D data. The laser scanning 3D technology allows to generate an high precision DEM, that can be used to calculate the morphological ground surface variations at different acquisition time intervals. The basic operation has been to acquire several DEMs in the test area: through the subtraction of different DEMs we can obtain the temporal decorrelation of two geometrical parameters: volume and elevation vector. The validation is performed by the comparison with the GPS data. The integration with differential interferometric SAR systems will allow to investigate wide areas. So, when the alarm event has been individuated, the laser scanning 3D is used to generate a precision DEM reconstruction. The results show that with such technique it is possible to calculate the volume and elevation variations with a standard deviation less than a centimetre.