A New Method for Continuous Track Monitoring in Regions of Differential Land Subsidence Rate Using the Integration of PS-InSAR and SBAS-InSAR

Abstract

It is difficult for single time-series Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) processing to guarantee the accuracy and efficiency of continuous track monitoring in regions of differential subsidence. This paper proposes a new method, integrating the Persistent Scatterer InSAR (PS-InSAR) with high precision and the Small Baseline Subset InSAR (SBAS-InSAR) with high efficiency for continuous track monitoring in regions of differential land subsidence rates. Based on PS-InSAR processing, the Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Techniques (ISODATA) algorithm is adopted to search the boundary of differential subsidence between slow and fast subsidence rates. The SBAS-InSAR processing with high frequency is used to continuously track and monitor the regions with fast subsidence rates incorporating original data and newly added data into small data sets from time to time according to SAR data updating, the monitoring results of which are obtained from the weighted average of the added results of SBAS-InSAR processing and the original results of PS-InSAR processing. The impact of SAR data updating on the slow subsidence rate region is so weak that it is not necessary to simultaneously update the corresponding monitoring results to improve global efficiency. If the slow subsidence rates region must be remeasured in relation to its previous subsidence, or the proportion of new data capacity alters compared with the original data set, PS-InSAR processing is used to analyze the whole monitoring region again using the complete data set. A case study performed on the west region of the Qinhuai River in Nanjing, China, indicates that the density of monitoring points in the fast-subsidence region is greatly improved, increasing from 711 points/km2 to 2760 points/km2—an increase of 288.2%.