Observing ground surface change series at active volcanoes in Indonesia using backscattering intensity of SAR data

Abstract

Indonesia contains 27 active volcanoes passing the West through the East part. Therefore, Indonesia is the most hazard front due to the volcanic activities. To obtain the new precursory signals leading to the eruptions, we applied remote sensing technique to observe ground surface change series at the summit of Sinabung and Kelud volcanoes. Sinabung volcano is located at Karo Region, North Sumatra Province. This volcano is a strato volcano type which is re-activated in August 2010. The eruption continues to the later years by ejecting volcanic products such as lava, pyroclastic flow, and ash fall deposits. This study is targeted to observe ground surface change series at the summit of Sinabung volcano since 2007 to 2011. In addition, we also compared the summit ground surface changes after the eruptions of Kelud volcano in 2007. Kelud volcano is also strato volcano type which is located at East Java, Indonesia. The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remotely sensed technology makes possible to observe rapidly a wide ground surface changes related to ground surface roughness. Detection series were performed by extracting the backscattering intensity of the Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) onboard the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS). The intensity values were then calculated using a Normalized Radar Cross-Section (NRCS). Based on surface roughness criterion at the summit of Sinabung volcano, we could observe the ground surface changes prior to the early eruption in August 2010. The continuous increment of NRCS values showed clearly at window size 3×3 pixel of the summit of Sinabung volcano. The same phenomenon was also detected at the summit of Kelud volcano after the 2007 eruptions. The detected ground surface changes were validated using optical Landsat-8, backscattering intensity ratio for volcanic products detection, and radial component of a tilt-meter data.