Persistent Scatterer Interferometry: A review

Abstract

a b s t r a c t Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is a powerful remote sensing technique able to measure and monitor displacements of the Earth's surface over time. Specifically, PSI is a radar-based technique that belongs to the group of differential interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). This paper provides a review of such PSI technique. It firstly recalls the basic principles of SAR interferometry, differential SAR interferometry and PSI. Then, a review of the main PSI algorithms proposed in the literature is provided, describing the main approaches and the most important works devoted to single aspects of PSI. A central part of this paper is devoted to the discussion of different characteristics and technical aspects of PSI, e.g. SAR data availability, maximum deformation rates, deformation time series, thermal expansion component of PSI observations, etc. The paper then goes through the most important PSI validation activities, which have provided valuable inputs for the PSI development and its acceptability at scientific, technical and commercial level. This is followed by a description of the main PSI applications developed in the last fifteen years. The paper concludes with a discussion of the main open PSI problems and the associated future research lines.

Monitoring soil creep landsliding in an urban area using persistent scatterer interferometry (El Papiol, Catalonia, Spain)

“…The LOS velocity map (see Fig. 8) has a precision of the order of 1 mm/year (see Crosetto et al (2016)). The transformation from the LOS values into displacements parallel to the slope involves the multiplication by a factor, which amplifies the errors; see Cascini et al (2010), Bovenga et al (2013) and Wasowski and Bovenga (2014).…”

“…Sector D shows the biggest displacements. In general, the displacements of the time series are not continuous: they are irregular, mainly due to the noise and atmospheric component of the PSI observations (Crosetto et al 2016).…”

“…PSI is a radar remote sensing technique to monitor displacements that can be used to measure a wide range of deformation phenomena (Hanssen 2001;Crosetto et al 2010Crosetto et al , 2016. As for landslide monitoring, there are several PSI works that cover broad areas; see Righini et al (2012), Strozzi et al (2013) and Wasowski and Bovenga (2014).…”

“…Another limitation is the magnitude of the measurable displacements. This limitation, which is due to the ambiguous nature of PSI observations, depends on the spatial pattern of the displacement, the density of the measured points and the temporal SAR sampling (see Crosetto et al (2016)). However, this limitation does not affect relatively slow displacement phenomena, like the one discussed in this paper.…”

Preliminary results from active landslide monitoring using multidisciplinary surveys

“…Furthermore, in the southeast of China, the Small Baseline Subsets DInSAR technique was applied using Cosmo-SkyMed data and it led to reliable results (Rao & Tang, 2014). Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is another approach of interferometry which may contribute in subsidence mapping with effective results with millimeter accuracy (Crosetto, Monserrat, Cuevas-González, Devanthéry, & Crippa, 2016;Rosi, Agostini, Tofani, & Casagli, 2014;Strozzi et al, 2001;Righini, Raspini, Moretti, & Cigna, 2011;Tofani, Raspini, Catani, & Casagli, 2013). PSI using ERS-1/2 and Envisat data has been applied for landslide monitoring in the Italian Alps (Del Ventisette, Righini, Moretti, & Casagli, 2014).…”