Assessment of Slow Deformations and Rapid Motions by Radar Interferometry

Space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferometry is a powerful tool for measuring movements on ground by exploiting phase differences of SAR images taken at different time instances. Two technologies and their applications are described: 1) The persistent scatterer technique uses stacks of typically 100 images taken over up to 10 years for assessing slow deformation processes, e.g. land subsidence, at an accuracy of better than 1mm/year. 2) Along-track interferometry is used to measure the velocity of vehicles for traffic monitoring. The potential of TerraSAR-X, the German radar satellite to be launched in 2006, for interferometry is discussed