Land Subsidence Monitoring In The Southern Spanish Coast Using Satellite Radar Interferometry

Over the last decades, coastal areas in many parts of Spain have undergone a continuous urban expansion because of the growth of cities and development of new residential areas. The transgression of the sea, as a consequence of sea level rise and the subsidence of populated areas, may result in serious problems to many constructions situated in the coastline. This has an important impact on the economy, environment and society, representing a considerable natural hazard. This paper investigates the applicability of InSAR in studies of coastal dynamics. We study the spatial and temporal evolution of some subsidence areas revealed from the SAR observations, an ERS SAR data set from 1992 to 2000 over the southern Spanish coast. After a preliminary processing using persistent scatterer (PS), small baseline (SBAS) and a combined multi-temporal InSAR time-series methods, we detect, for the first time, some subsidence areas that may be at risk.