Monitoring of mining induced surface deformation using L-band SAR interferometry

In the mining context there is a specific interest in monitoring temporally non-uniform high deformation rates with high spatial gradients. In recent years land surface deformation monitoring with SAR data reached some maturity. Mainly C-band SAR data were used. Nevertheless, there remain important limitations to the availability of the interferometry based deformation information. Reasons include incomplete spatial coverage with information gaps for low coherence areas, problems in resolving high deformation gradients, and problems in resolving temporally non-uniform deformation. The objective of our contribution is to demonstrate that these limitations are significantly reduced at L-band. In vegetated areas and for fast deformations a good applicability of L-band INSAR was found.