A persistent scatterer interferometry procedure based on stable areas to filter the atmospheric component

Abstract

This paper describes a Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) procedure to monitor the land deformation in an urban area induced by aquifer dewatering and the consequent drawdown of the water table. The procedure, based on Sentinel-1 data, is illustrated considering the construction works of Glories Square, Barcelona (Spain). The study covers a period from March 2015 to November 2017, which includes a dewatering event in spring 2017. This paper describes the proposed procedure, whose most original part includes the estimation of the atmospheric phase component using stable areas located in the vicinity of the monitoring area. The performances of the procedure are analysed, characterising the original atmospheric phase component and the residual one that remains after modelling the atmospheric contribution. This procedure can work with any type of deformation phenomena, provided that its spatial extension is sufficiently small. The quality of the obtained time series is illustrated discussing different deformation results, including a validation result using piezometric data and a thermal expansion case.