Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 51 ›› Issue (7): 1485-1519.doi: 10.11947/j.AGCS.2022.20220224

• Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar for deformation mapping: opportunities, challenges and the outlook

LI Zhenhong1,2,3, ZHU Wu1,2,3, YU Chen1,4, ZHANG Qin1,3, ZHNAG Chenglong1,2, LIU Zhenjiang1,2, ZHANG Xuesong1,2, CHEN Bo1,2, DU Jiantao1,2, SONG Chuang1,4, HAN Bingquan1,2, ZHOU Jiawei1,2   

  1. 1. School of Geological Engineering and Geomatics, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710054, China;
    2. Big Data Center for Geosciences and Satellites, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710054, China;
    3. Key Laboratory of Western China's Mineral Resources and Geological Engineering, Ministry of Education, Xi'an 710054, China;
    4. School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK
  • Received:2022-03-30 Revised:2022-07-01 Published:2022-08-13
  • Supported by:
    The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41941019|42074040)|The National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2020YFC1512000)|Shaanxi Province Science and Technology Innovation Team (No. 2021TD-51)|Shaanxi Province Geoscience Big Data and Geohazard Prevention Innovation Team (No. 2022)|ESA-MOST DRAGON-5 Project (No. 59339)|Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. 300102260301|300102262902|300102261108|300203211261)

Abstract: With frequent launches of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, interferometric SAR (InSAR) technology has been presented with unprecedented opportunities along with many new challenges for deformation mapping. In this paper, we concisely demonstrate the current development of SAR satellites and the principle of the InSAR technique, and then systematically review the advantages and disadvantages of a set of advanced InSAR techniques including InSAR stacking, small baseline subset InSAR (SBAS-InSAR), persistent scatterer InSAR (PS-InSAR),distributed scatterer InSAR (DS-InSAR) and split-bandwidth interferometry (SBI).On this basis, major challenges currently hampering InSAR applications (e.g., coherent loss, atmospheric distrubence, phase unwrapping errors, geometric distortions and multi-dimensional surface displacements) are investigated and their corresponding possible solutions are discussed. Then, we review the current status, particularly their limitations, of various typical InSAR applications under different scenarios such as earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, ground subsidence, glaciers, infrastructure displacement monitoring, and atmospheric water vapour mapping. Finally, we present the outlook of InSAR, suggesting that with the continuous development of higher spatial resolution, higher temporal resolution and smaller SAR satellites, InSAR shall be applied to a number of new applications that cannot be achieved by traditional methods, bringing greater inspiration to the development of InSAR in China.

Key words: InSAR, principle, application scenarios, outlook, review

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