Using DInSAR to inventory landslide geological disaster in Bijie, Guizhou, China

Abstract

Landslides are very complicated natural phenomena that create significant losses of life and assets throughout China. However, previous studies mainly focused on monitoring the development trend of known landslides in small areas, and few studies focused on the identification of new landslides. In addition, karst areas, where the vegetation is dense, the mountains are high, the slopes are steep, and the time incoherence is serious, have difficulty in tracking Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) landslides. Therefore, based on DInSAR technology, we use ALOS-2 PALSAR data to conduct continuous monitoring of existing hazards and identify new geological hazards in karst areas. The major results are as follows: 1) From June 11 to 6 August 2017, it was discovered that a hidden point of landslides occurred on the 420 m northwest mountain near the town of Zongling. It was determined that the landslide hidden point had been slipping for two consecutive years, with an average slip of 6.0 cm. From 4 September 2016 to 22 January 2017, undiscovered hidden points in the landslide account were found in Yinjiazhai. On 13 September 2016 and 22 November 2016, the discovered potential hazards in the landslide log book were the mountain hazards in southwestern Shiping village, and the deformation was 7.8 cm. 2) The DInSAR monitoring results from September to November 2016 showed that large deformations occurred in the landslide area of Shiping village. During a field visit, large cracks on the surface were found. The length of surface cracks in the southwest direction of Shiping village was 2.8 m. On 13 July 2017, Shiping collapsed as a result of the collapse of the mountainous area where the disaster occurred. The average slope of the landslide in the landslide area was approximately 65°, the height was 95 m, the length and width were 150 m and 25 m, respectively, and the thickness was 5 m. The method has shown great potential in precisely identifying some new geological hazards sites, as well as tracking and monitoring the potential hazards of geological disasters listed on the landslide account.