Abstract
Velocity dictates the destructive potential of a landslide. A combination of synthetic aperture radar (SAR), optical, and GPS data were used to maximize spatial and temporal coverage to monitor continuously-moving portions of the Portuguese Bend landslide complex on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Southern California. Forty SAR images from the COSMO-SkyMed satellite, acquired between 19 July 2012 and 27 September 2014, were processed using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI). Eight optical images from the WorldView-2 satellite, acquired between 20 February 2011 and 16 February 2016, were processed using the Co-registration of Optically Sensed Images and Correlation (COSI-Corr) technique. Displacement measurements were taken at GPS monuments between September 2007 and May 2017. Incremental and average deformations across the landslide complex were measured using all three techniques. Velocity measured within the landslide complex ranges from slow (> 1.6 m/year) to extremely slow (< 16 mm/year). COSI-Corr and GPS provide detailed coverage of m/year-scale deformation while PSI can measure extremely slow deformation rates (mm/year-scale), which COSI-Corr and GPS cannot do reliably. This case study demonstrates the applicability of SAR, optical, and GPS data synthesis as a complimentary approach to repeat field monitoring and mapping to changes in landslide activity through time.
Highlights
The destructive capabilities of a landslide depend on its velocity and proximity to assets deemed valuable to human livelihood [1]
Many previous landslide studies have proven the efficacy of pairing datasets from a ground-based source with a remote sensing-based source: GPS measurements have been combined with Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) [34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44] and with COSI-Corr [45,46,47]; in situ measurements have been combined with PSI [48,49,50,51,52,53] and, to a lesser extent, with optical correlation methods, of which COSI-Corr is one [54,55,56]
The premise is that each technique (PSI, COSI-Corr, and GPS), when analyzed together, provides an advantage where the others might be limited
Summary
The destructive capabilities of a landslide depend on its velocity and proximity to assets deemed valuable to human livelihood [1]. Many previous landslide studies have proven the efficacy of pairing datasets from a ground-based source with a remote sensing-based source: GPS measurements have been combined with PSI [34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44] and with COSI-Corr [45,46,47]; in situ measurements (e.g., inclinometers) have been combined with PSI [48,49,50,51,52,53] and, to a lesser extent, with optical correlation methods, of which COSI-Corr is one [54,55,56] In this case of landslide deformation monitoring and mapping, PSI, COSI-Corr, and GPS measurements are merged to maximize spatial and temporal coverage and, as shown, to reduce limitations of a single technique. COSI-Corr and GPS can reliably measure ground deformation rates in the cm/year to m/year range, but neither have the accuracy to measure sub-cm/year velocity; PSI, on the other hand, can measure deformation at the mm/year-scale by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio through image stacking [57,58], but suffers from phase decorrelation at greater displacement rates [59]
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