Time-Series InSAR Applications Over Urban Areas in China

In this study, we present the results achieved within the Dragon project, a cooperation program between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Remote Sensing Center of China (NRSCC), about monitoring subsidences and landslides in urban areas, analyzing cities growth and measuring the deformation of big man-made structures. Among the processed areas, we report here the main results we obtained in the test sites of Shanghai, Tianjin, Badong, and Three Gorges Dam. The techniques that have been used to process the data are original SAR interferometry (InSAR), Permanent Scatterers (PS-InSAR), Quasi-PS InSAR (QPS-InSAR), and a combination of coherent-uncoherent analysis. The results show that time-series InSAR techniques allow us to extract ground information with high spatial density and thus help us understanding the impact of urban development on terrain movements.