Deformation monitoring and thematic mapping of the Badaling Great Wall using very high-resolution interferometric synthetic aperture radar data

Abstract

The preventive monitoring and sustainable conservation of large-scale cultural heritage sites require satellite-based Earth observations. In this study, we present the first monitoring and thematic mapping results of the Badaling Great Wall (Beijing, China) using deformation indicators calculated from very high-resolution (VHR) multi-temporal spotlight TerraSAR-X data. The proposed coarse–fine search algorithm achieved high computational efficiency for calculating the unknown parameters of the two-tier network persistent scatterer synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (PSInSAR) approach. The spatiotemporal deformation anomalies, characterized by the absolute velocity, deformation deviation and acceleration, are informative to identify suspected hotspots for prioritizing monitoring activities. We provide an understandable method for thematic mapping and subsequent sustainable conservation of heritage sites by synergistically exploiting impacts from natural degradation and the tourism industry. We determine that the optimum tourist capacity of the site could be 1.0 million per month based on comparing pre- and post-COVID data (2019–2020). This study demonstrates the potential and performance of spaceborne PSInSAR tools for the intelligent management of large-scale architectural heritage sites by integrating InSAR deformation products with environmental and social data.