15 years of satellite interferometry: state of the art and new trends

Over the last 15 years, the use of satellite radar interferometry has widely spread, becoming an operational tool as for land management and disaster prevention and prediction, and for big construction projects monitoring. Some of the main reasons behind this evolution are: improved analysis algorithms, increased computing capacity and the new radar satellite missions operated from national and international space agencies, which invested in the Earth Observation segment. The growing demand of monitoring services from final users, both from public and private sectors, also contributed to support innovation and research of new surface deformation monitoring solutions. InSAR analysis have been applied in different industry sectors and for different application fields, and for some large corporations like ENI, Shell, Chevron, in the oil&gas sector, Italferr, Spea, CrossRail London. Societe du Grand Paris, in the civil engineering sector, it is becoming more and more a standard tool for surface deformation monitoring. The technology transfer has then been completed: from universities and research centers to market and industrial community. This paper briefly describes an historical background over 15 years of radar satellite interferometry application, focusing on urban areas and integration with other in situ measurement techniques. Finally, it describes future developments which are paving the way toward an integrated near real time monitoring approach.