DETECTING DEFORMATION DUE TO THE 2018 MERAPI VOLCANO ERUPTION USING INTERFEROMETRIC SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR (INSAR) FROM SENTINEL-1 TOPS

Abstract

This paper describes the application of Sentinel-1 TOPS (Terrain Observation with Progressive Scans), the latest generation of SAR satellite imagery, to detect displacement of the Merapi volcano due to the May–June 2018 eruption. Deformation was detected by measuring the vertical displacement of the surface topography around the eruption centre. The Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technique was used to measure the vertical displacement. Furthermore, several Landsat-8 Thermal Infra Red Sensor (TIRS) imageries were used to confirm that the displacement was generated by the volcanic eruption. The increasing temperature of the crater was the main parameter derived using the Landsat-8 TIRS, in order to determine the increase in volcanic activity. To understand this phenomenon, we used Landsat-8 TIRS acquisition dates before, during and after the eruption. The results show that the eruption in the May–June 2018 period led to a small negative vertical displacement. This vertical displacement occurred in the peak of volcano range from -0.260 to -0.063 m. The crater, centre of eruption and upper slope of the volcano experienced negative vertical displacement. The results of the analysis from Landsat-8 TIRS in the form of an increase in temperature during the 2018 eruption confirmed that the displacement detected by Sentinel-1 TOPS SAR was due to the impact of volcanic activity. Based on the results of this analysis, it can be seen that the integration of SAR and thermal optical data can be very useful in understanding whether deformation is certain to have been caused by volcanic activity.