The synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) technique has been applied in monitoring the deformation of infrastructures, such as bridges, highways, railways and subways. Persistent scatterer (PS)-InSAR is one of the InSAR techniques, which utilises persistent scatterers to derive long-term displacements. This study applied time-series methods to post-process the PS-InSAR-derived time-series displacements with the use of 86 Sentinel-1A acquisitions spanning from 6 January 2018 to 27 November 2020. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and seasonal and trend decomposition using loess (STL) were combined to estimate the seasonal component of the total time-series displacements. Then, a temperature correlation map was generated by correlating the seasonal component with the temperature variation. Results show that the thermal expansion phenomenon is pronounced on the buildings of the Zhuhai–Macao Passenger Terminal as well as the bridge and road connecting to the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), while it is less obviously observed at the main Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB). In addition, sudden changes between subsidence and uplift can be detected through the p-values derived by applying the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test to the residual signals after removing the linear and seasonal components from the original ones.

Accurate automated extraction of coseismic deformation from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data can be challenging owing to interference from inherent atmospheric noise. Particularly, the limited displacement of small-to-moderate earthquakes (Mw<6.5) can easily be obscured by phase errors and/or noise. To address this issue, we developed an autoencoder model based on a deep learning framework (i.e., Pytorch) to automate the accurate extraction of coseismic displacement from Interferometric SAR (InSAR) interferograms. We constructed a training dataset using simulated interferograms. Our trained model performed well for interferograms with real noise. When applied to worldwide real earthquakes of various rupture styles, the model produced clear coseismic displacement with less noise and a better fit to coseismic fault models compared to the differential InSAR method without noise correction. Additionally, it achieved co-seismic deformation similar to popular InSAR time series and GNSS methods. The approach will enhance the proceduralization and popularization of InSAR applications in earthquake monitoring, providing improved constraints on the kinematic characteristics of earthquakes.

The proper use of distributed scatterer (DS) can improve both the density and quality of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (InSAR) measurements. A critical step in DS interferometry (DSI) is the restoration of a consistent phase series from SAR interferogram stacks. Most state-of-the-art algorithms adopt an approximate likelihood function to calculate the likelihood by replacing the true coherence matrix with its estimation, more specifically, the sample coherence matrix (SCM). However, this approximation has a drawback in that the coherence estimates are greatly biased when the coherence is low. In this study, we derive a new likelihood function without such an approximation. Accordingly, a DSI framework using this function for phase estimation and point selection is provided. In this framework, the new likelihood function serves as a cost function for phase estimation and a quality measure for DS selection. Its performance is investigated by experiments in a simulation study and a real-world case study using Sentinel-1 data over Shenzhen airport in China. The results reveal that the proposed DSI framework outperforms the existing state-of-the-art approaches in different scenarios, in terms of providing a more accurate estimation and improving DS density and coverage.

With the rapid advancements in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites and associated processing algorithms over recent decades, interferometric SAR (InSAR) has emerged as a routine method for monitoring large-scale ground deformation and interpreting geophysical processes. Statistical inference serves as a major component in InSAR technique developments and applications. This article provides an overview of InSAR deformation measurement and InSAR-constrained geophysical inversion, using a statistical inference point of view. Its objectives are to facilitate understanding of the method by addressing its underlying mathematical challenges. We begin by introducing the concept of statistical inference and the structure of our content organization framework. Next, we investigate the distinct concerns associated with statistical inference in InSAR deformation measurement and InSAR-constrained geophysical inversion. Finally, we propose several significant directions for future research. Table 1 includes abbreviations used throughout this article. Additionally, we highlight relevant resources, such as mathematical background, open source codes, and data repositories, in an appendix, which is available as supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.1109/MGRS.2023.3344159 .