Monitoring of landslide deformation based on the coherent targets of high resolution InSAR data

Landslides are a kind of typical natural disaster in China, which pose serious threats to civil lives, property and living environment. Therefore, the identification, monitoring and prevention of landslides have been considered as a long-term geological work for the public welfare. In this article, 8 TerraSAR-X high resolution strip-map mode images, acquired in the period from January to March 2012 and covering Fanjinping landslide in Zigui county, Hubei province, were used to test the usability in monitoring the deformation of single landslide. The results of two-pass DInSAR sketched the region and the shape of the deformation field of Fanjiaping landslide. Corner reflectors’ linear deformation rate using CRInSAR method could be approximately validated by the in-situ GPS measurements. From the coherent pixels’ linear deformation rate map, it was inferred that the deformation could be more obvious in the tail of the Muyubao landslide while the lowest frontier of this landslide might prevent the slide. Due to its shorter revisiting period and high bandwidth,,the high resolution TerraSAR-X images can keep better coherence than previous satellite SAR data in the test area and provide basic guarantee to monitor the deformation of single landslides.