SNAP2StaMPS – Data preparation for StaMPS PSI processing with SNAP

Land subsidence monitoring is very important for urban areas which are susceptible to ground instabilities for both local and regional scale. The reasons for this phenomenon can be related to either anthropogenic activities (e.g. excess groundwater pumping, subterranean mining processes, rapid urbanisation) or natural-geological ones (e.g. hydro-compaction in low density soils, liquefaction, crustal deformation).

Land subsidence in Mexico City, which is caused by groundwater over-exploitation, is estimated to be more than 9 meters over the last century, resulting in damages to buildings, streets, sidewalks, sewers, storm water drains and other infrastructure. Previous studies using ERS data, showed a maximum subsidence rate larger than 30 cm/year in some parts of the city. Since the city is partially built on the area of a former lake (Lago Texcoco) and it rests on the heavily saturated clay, it is collapsing due to the over-extraction of groundwater. Current subsidence rates estimated using Sentinel-1 SAR data are around 2.5 cm/month.

Satellite radar interferometry (InSAR) is an effective method that allows monitoring of ground displacement over large areas, giving insight into the spatial distribution of the subsidence rates. Differential interferometric SAR covers range of methods varying in complexity and accuracy. We have already addressed a simple DInSAR processing in the webinar on Land Subsidence Mapping with Sentinel-1 in 2018.

Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is a powerful technique able to measure and monitor displacements of the Earth’s surface over time with high accuracy from interferogram time-series. StaMPS is a widely used powerful package which includes persistent scatterer methods, among others. It is compatible with the TRAIN software and therefore allows to incorporate various tropospheric correction methods in the processing workflow.

In this webinar we will not address the processing with StaMPS, but rather the preparation of the data for StaMPS ingestion using SNAP and SNAP2StaMPS routines developed by M. Foumelis, J. M. Delgado Blasco, et al (2018).  

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Questions and Answers

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