Long-Term Land Deformation Monitoring Using Quasi-Persistent Scatterer (Q-PS) Technique Observed by Sentinel-1A: Case Study Kelok Sembilan

Abstract

Located on the mountainous area, Kelok Sembilan flyover area in West Sumatra, Indonesia has a long history of land deformation, therefore monitoring and analyzing as continuously is a necessity to minimize the impact. Notably, in the rainy season, the land deformation occurs along this area. The zone is crucial as the center of transportation connection in the middle of Sumatra. Quasi-Persistent Scatterer (Q-PS) Interferometry technique was applied for extracting information of land deformation on the field from time to time. Not only does the method have high performance for detecting land deformation but also improve the number of PS point, especially in a non-urban area. This research supported by 90 scenes of Sentinel-1A (C-band) taken from October 2014 to November 2017 for ascending and descending orbit with VV and VH polarization in 5 × 20 m (range × azimuth) resolution. Both satellite orbits detected two critical locations of land deformation namely as zone A and Zone B, which located in positive steep slope where there is more than 500 mm movement in the Line of Sight (LOS) during acquisition time. Deformations in the vertical and horizontal direction for both zone, are 778.9 mm, 795.7 mm and 730.5 mm, 751.7 mm, respectively. Finally, the results were confirmed by ground truth data using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) observation.