Workshop @ ETH Zurich on 25/01/2017: SBAS-DInSAR processing on the GEP

In the context of space-borne geodetic techniques, Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) has demonstrated its high performance in measuring surface displacements in different conditions and scenarios, both natural and anthropic. In particular, the advanced DInSAR time series processing method referred to as Small BAseline Subset (SBAS), that allows studying both the spatial and temporal variability of the surface displacements, has proven to be particularly suitable in different contexts, as for natural hazards (volcanoes, earthquakes and landslides) and human-induced deformation (subsidence due to aquifer exploitation, mining operations, and building of large infrastructures).

Recently, an efficient implementation of this algorithm (referred to as P-SBAS approach) has been fully integrated within the Geohazards Thematic Exploitation Platform (GEP) of ESA by the CNR IREA team. The GEP is devoted to the exploitation of EO data resources in the context of the Geohazard Supersites & Natural Laboratories as well as on the CEOS Pilots on Seismic Hazards and Volcanoes. The GEP (https://geohazards-tep.eo.esa.int/) is sourced with elements, data and processing, including P-SBAS, relevant to the geohazards theme.

The integration of the P-SBAS algorithm within GEP resulted in a web-based tool freely available to the scientific community. This tool allows users to process, from their own laptops, the European SAR data archives (ERS, ENVISAT and Sentinel-1) for obtaining surface displacement maps and time series in a completely unsupervised way, without caring about data download and processing facility procurements.

The course is organized in four parts. First, a short overview on the DInSAR processing methods allowing retrieving mean surface deformation maps and displacement time series will be provided, with a specific focus on the SBAS-DInSAR technique. Secondly, the GEP and G-POD environments will be introduced and the P-SBAS web tool will be presented. Subsequently, the advanced features as well as some case studies and results achieved via the web tool are also shown. Finally, some case studies relevant to mountain environments will be presented and analysed.

This is the agenda of the Workshop that will be held on the 25th of January at ETH Zurich (https://www.ethz.ch/), in the Department of Earth Sciences:

09:30-10:15 – Registration of the participants
10:15-11:00 – Part 1: Introduction to Differential SAR Interferometry
11:15-12:00 – Part 2: ESA Platforms for Automatic Web Processing
13:15-14:00 – Part 3: New frontiers in Earth Observation research
14:00-14:45 – Part 4: Case studies in mountain environments
14:45-15:30 – Open Discussion

Live streaming of the event will be available at Live | ETH Zürich Videoportal
Streaming will be open to everybody and will be activated 2-3 days before the event.

It was a very successful GEP Workshop hosted at ETH in Zurich !

Workshop resources are available at the following links:
Material: SBAS-DInSAR processing on the ESA Geohazards Exploitation Platform | Zenodo
Videos: Workshop: SBAS-DInSAR processing on the ESA Geohazard Exploitation Platform | ETH Zürich Videoportal