Radargrammetry DEM Generation Using High-Resolution SAR Imagery Over La Palma During the 2021 Cumbre Vieja Volcanic Eruption

Abstract

This letter aims at investigating the potential of high-resolution (up to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.7\times0.5\,\,\text{m}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images in generating digital elevation models (DEMs) using the radargrammetry technique. In this work, we process two SAR images recorded by the Capella Space X-band satellite-borne radar sensor on two consecutive days, October 2 and 3, 2021, over La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) during the Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption. We adopt an iterative point-aggregation algorithm to identify matching pixels between the two images; then, the height estimation is performed using a distance minimization routine over the previously identified pairs of matching points. The resultant radargrammetric DEM is validated against a lidar-based DEM for various land cover (LC) classes, showing a good agreement in the areas less affected by lava flow. An estimation of the lava thickness is performed, yielding profiles of the cone area, which are compared to the photogrammetry estimates obtained from the Pléiades mission data.