Monitoring of post-failure landslide deformation by the PS-InSAR technique at Lubietova in Central Slovakia

Abstract

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar data from ERS and ENVISAT sensors were utilized in the analysis of the post-failure deformations in the area of Lubietova town in Central Slovakia. The catastrophic landslide of 1977 together with surrounding landslides in the Lubietova area were analysed with the help of persistent scatterers (PS) technique in order to evaluate recent and past deformations of the unstable slopes. Although long-term precise geodetic monitoring of the 1977 landslide revealed differential deformations inside the sliding mass, due to the lack of the PS located inside the landside caused by temporal decorrelation, unfortunately, these records could not be directly compared. The adjacent landslides with sufficient number of PS were analysed by transformation of the line of sight displacements recorded by the sensors to the slope vector direction. This procedure allowed identification of the precise boundaries of the actively moving landslide parts and the updating of the landslide inventory for the Lubietova area.