Monitoring of long-term land subsidence from 2003 to 2017 in coastal area of Semarang, Indonesia by SBAS DInSAR analyses using Envisat-ASAR, ALOS-PALSAR, and Sentinel-1A SAR data

Abstract

Land subsidence is a critical issue that large cities located in coastal areas, such as Semarang, Indonesia, must address. The monitoring of land subsidence is vital for predicting and mitigating the disasters that such subsidence may cause. Therefore, an economical and effective monitoring method, which can continuously provide accurate measurements over extensive areas, is highly required. Differential Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) has the potential to be a powerful technique that can meet the above demands. Actually, DInSAR has been applied to monitor the subsidence in Semarang, but it was for a limited period before 2012.In order to clarify the transition of the long-term subsidence behavior in Semarang, the Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) method, which is one type of time-series DInSAR, is employed in this research. The sets of data of Envisat-ASAR (2003–2007), ALOS-PALSAR (2007–2011), and Sentinel-1A (2015–2017) are employed for the analyses. Then, the validity of the SBAS results is discussed from the viewpoints of both spatial distribution and temporal transition using GPS displacement measurement results and the geological conditions of the ground.On the other hand, as the lifespan of SAR satellites is commonly designed to be around 5–7 years, an appropriate method, which can connect the subsidence provided independently by the unlinked time-series data sets of the three different SAR satellite data, is required. This study uses the Hyperbolic Method (HM) to connect the above unlinked SBAS results. The HM is often used to fit the monitored subsidence in practice as a geotechnical engineering tool. Using this method, 14 years of the temporal behavior of the subsidence in Semarang is evaluated.It is found that the transition of the subsidence is different depending on the location, and that the subsidence rate is still increasing in the north and northeast parts of the coastal area. This study shows that SBAS DInSAR can be a useful tool for long-term continuous subsidence monitoring.