Landslide Detection and Mapping Based on SBAS-InSAR and PS-InSAR: A Case Study in Gongjue County, Tibet, China

Abstract

The rock mass along the Jinsha River is relatively broken under complex geological action. Many ancient landslides were distributed along the Jinsha River in Gongjue County, which is very dangerous under the action of gravity, tectonic stress and river erosion. Efficient and accurate identification and monitoring of landslides is important for disaster monitoring and early warning. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology has been proved to be an effective technology for landslide hazard identification and mapping. However, great uncertainty inevitably exists due to the single deformation observation method, resulting in wrong judgment during the process of landslide detection. Therefore, to address the uncertainties arising from single observations, a cross-comparison method is put forward using SBAS-InSAR (small baseline subset InSAR) and PS-InSAR (permanent scatterers InSAR) technology. Comparative analysis of the spatial complementarity of interference points and temporal deformation refined the deformation characteristics and verified the reliability of the InSAR results, aiding in the comprehensive identification and further mapping of landslides. Landslides along the Jinsha River in Gongjue County were studied in this paper. Firstly, 14 landslides with a total area of 20 km2 were identified by using two time-series InSAR methods. Then, the deformation characteristics of these landslides were validated by UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) images, multiresource remote sensing data and field investigation. Further, the precipitation data were introduced to analyze the temporal deformation characteristics of two large landslides. Lastly, the influence of fault activity on landslide formation is further discussed. Our results demonstrate that the cross-comparison of the time-series InSAR method can effectively verify the accuracy of landslide identification.