Submitted Abstract
The present project is a resubmission of SMMIP submitted in January 2016. This new version mainly addresses the only point that was ranked as “good” instead of “excellent” by one of the reviewers, i.e. the dissemination of expected outcomes. Indeed we now explain into more details how these outcomes will be made freely available to the scientific community. We also highlight into more details the potential applications for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and more details are provided about the cross validation of the method. Finally we explain how the same Split Band module can be used to correct interferograms from the ionospheric artefacts, which is of the highest importance for the L-band sensors (such as ALOS2 or the upcoming SAOCOM) and the C-band Sentinel-1 sensor.The SMMIP project aims first at merging two highly innovative tools developed separately in the field of Synthesis Aperture Radar (SAR) phasimetry and being intrinsically highly complementary. The first one is the MSBAS technique developed by Dr. Sergey Samsonov during a post-doc stay at ECGS. This tool uses multi-sensor temporal stacks of geoprojected unwrapped phase surface maps issued from SAR interferometry after all known component removal (topography, …). From these multi-views time-series, the MSBAS tool derives the maps of vertical and horizontal components of local displacement along time allowing to improve source models and foremost develop monitoring and alert systems in highly hazardous areas.The second tool is the Split Band Interferometry (SBInSAR) developed by the seconded fellow at the Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL). This second tool, through the exploitation of the multi-chromatic potential offered by the most recent SAR sensor, gives the possibility to solve the everlasting bottleneck of InSAR processing, which is the phase unwrapping.SBInSAR offers the possibility to perform an absolute phase unwrapping on a point-by-point basis, allowing thus to connect isolated zones in a single unwrapped phase surface instead of excluding these zones for on-going measurements. If coherence allows for it, SBInSAR is thus useful to extend the measurement zone, including even single points, for feeding the MSBAS processing. Fusion of both tools in a single one will allow improving Earth crustal deformation measurement for tectonic and volcanic monitoring, which is one of the main activities developed and maintained at ECGS.After the merging step, the combined tool will be tested and validated mainly on the current test site studied by ECGS, i.e. the Virunga volcanic province in Eastern Congo. This area affected by multiple ground deformations of various spatial extension and temporal scale is well mastered by the team (>10 years of experience in remote- and ground-based studies).The developed tool and implemented methodology will be easily adaptable to other sites, like for example subsidence monitoring above the abandoned iron ore mines in southern Luxembourg, and even open opportunities to develop and provide monitoring services. The project will lead to high-ranking scientific publications, foster the use of InSAR in Luxembourg through the organisation of seminars and training courses, and will offer possibilities for Public-Private Partnership. MSBAS software will be made freely available and published with open access in a high-rank international scientific journal (paper submitted in June 2016). The Split Band module developed at ECGS will be integrated within the CIS suite and released as an independent module to be used with existing open source InSAR processing software such as Doris (TUDelft).