Deformation measurement using interferometric SAR data

The paper focuses on the differential interferometric SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) technique for the monitoring of terrain surface deformations. The paper begins with a concise description of the properties of the differential interferometric phase, which represents the main observation for the estimation of the deformations. Then the paper discusses of the main features of a new interferometric SAR procedure. In particular, the interferometric SAR processing, the least squares adjustment procedure to estimate the terrain deformations, and the geometric model that is needed to geocode the SAR products are described. The second part of the paper illustrates two applications of the proposed procedure. The first one is a screening analysis, whose main goal is the detection of unknown subsidence phenomena over a large area, based on a limited set of SAR images. The second one is a quantitative analysis of a urban subsidence of small spatial extent, which was based on two independent ascending and descending SAR datasets