Detection of land subsidence in the area of intensive oil production by ALOS PALSAR data

Abstract

Differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry (D-InSAR) technique is powerful tool to detect the earth's surface topography and its deformations as land subsidence. In this research, we use Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-band SAR (PALSAR) data to investigate land subsidence in Karamay—a typical mining city in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China during 2007 and 2009. The two-pass D-InSAR technique with Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was used to measure the location and amplitude of ground deformation, it is found that two northeastern sites in the city exhibit clear indications of land subsidence, the maximum subsidence depth is estimated to be 35.66 cm in the study time period. Despite the interferometric technique provides valuable data that complement traditional geomorphological studies, some limitations are still exist, due to the spatial and temporal decorrelation between the interferometric pair in the interferogram. Hence, further observations are necessary for evaluate the accuracy of the experimental results obtained in this study. Monitoring of these sites should continue with differential Global positioning system (GPS) measurements and other auxiliary data sets to investigate the performance of ALOS PALSAR for ground subsidence monitoring.