Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2021, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (6): 1270-1283.doi: 10.23919/JSEE.2021.000108

• RADAR DIFFERENTIAL INTERFEROMETRY TECHNIQUES AND APPLICATIONS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Interferometric coherence and seasonal deformation characteristics analysis of saline soil based on Sentinel-1A time series imagery

Rui ZHANG1,2(), Wei XIANG1(), Guoxiang LIU1,2,*(), Xiaowen WANG1(), Wenfei MAO1(), Yin FU1(), Jialun CAI1(), Bo ZHANG1()   

  1. 1 Faculty of Geosciences and Environmental Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 611756, China
    2 State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Spatial Information Technology of High-Speed Rail Safety, Chengdu 611756, China
  • Received:2021-03-30 Online:2022-01-05 Published:2022-01-05
  • Contact: Guoxiang LIU E-mail:zhangrui@swjtu.edu.cn;xw_swjtu@foxmail.com;rsgxliu@swjtu.edu.cn;insarwxw@gmail.com;wenfeimao@my.swjtu.edu.cn;rsyinfu@my.swjtu.edu.cn;caijialun@my.swjtu.edu.cn;rsbozh@gmail.com
  • About author:|ZHANG Rui was born in 1982. He received his Ph.D. degree in photogrammetry and remote sensing from Southwest Jiaotong University. He is currently an associated professor with the Faculty of Geosciences and Environmental Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University. His research interests include the development of ground deformation monitoring and early warning system, fundamental study of microware remote sensing, and synthetic aperture radar interferometry. E-mail: zhangrui@swjtu.edu.cn||XIANG Wei was born in 1989. He received his B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in surveying engineering from China University of Geosciences, Wuhan. Since 2017, he has been a Ph.D. student with Southwest Jiaotong University. His current research interests include geological hazard monitoring and time-series InSAR. E-mail: xw_swjtu@foxmail.com||LIU Guoxiang was born in 1968. He received his Ph.D. degree in remote sensing from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is currently a professor with Southwest Jiaotong University. His current research interests include InSAR, radargrammetry and digital photogrammetry. E-mail: rsgxliu@swjtu.edu.cn||WANG Xiaowen was born in 1987. He received his Ph.D. degree in photogrammetry and remote sensing from Southwest Jiaotong University. He is currently an associate professor with Southwest Jiaotong University. His current research interests include InSAR, crustal deformation measuring and modeling, and digital elevation model differencing. E-mail: insarwxw@gmail.com||MAO Wenfei was born in 1990. He received his B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in surveying engineering from East China University of Technology. Since 2018, he has been working toward his Ph.D. degree with Southwest Jiaotong University. His current research interests include ionospheric modeling and correcting for InSAR/TS-InSAR based on GNSS and SAR, and geological hazard monitoring. E-mail: wenfeimao@my.swjtu.edu.cn||FU Yin was born in 1994. She received her B.S. degree from Southwest Jiaotong University. She is currently working toward her Ph.D. degree with the Southwest Jiaotong University. Her research interests include image matching, multi-model remote sensing, glaciology and InSAR. E-mail: rsyinfu@my.swjtu.edu.cn||CAI Jialun was born in 1990. He received his B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in surveying engineering and mineral prospecting and exploration from Southwest University of Science and Technology. Since 2016, he has been a Ph.D. student with Southwest Jiaotong University. His current research interests include geological hazard monitoring, InSAR, ground-based SAR, and UAV aerial photogrammetry. E-mail: caijialun@my.swjtu.edu.cn||ZHANG Bo was born in 1989. He received his B.S. and M.S degrees in surveying engineering and disaster prevention and mitigation engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University. He is working toward his Ph.D. degree with Southwest Jiaotong University. His current research interests include radar interferometry and remote sensing glaciology. E-mail: rsbozh@gmail.com
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41771402; 41804009), the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0502700), and Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2018JY0564; 2019ZDZX0042; 2020JDTD0003)

Abstract:

Affected by the natural environmental and human activity factors, significant seasonal differences appear on the regional scattering characteristic and ground deformation of saline soil. Interferometric decorrelation due to season replacement limits the conventional multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (MT-InSAR) technique and its application in such areas. To extend the monitoring capability in the salt desert area, we select a vast basin of saline soil around Howz-e-Soltan Salt Lake of Iran as the study area and present an improved MT-InSAR for experimental research. Based on 131 C-band Sentinel-1A images collected between October 2014 to July 2020,1896 refined interferograms in total are selected from all interferogram candidates. Interferometric coherence analysis shows that the coherence in the saline soil area has an apparent seasonal variation, and the soil moisture affected by the precipitation may be the main factor that leads to the seasonal variation. Subsequently, the deformation characteristics of saline soil under different environmental conditions and human activity factors are compared and analyzed in detail. Related deformation mechanisms of different saline soil types are initially revealed by combining interferometric coherence, meteorological data, and engineering geological characteristics of saline soil. Related results would provide reference for the large-scale infrastructure construction engineering in similar saline soil areas.

Key words: Howz-e-Soltan Salt Lake, saline soil, multi-temporal InSAR, interferometric coherence, seasonal deformation, Sentinel-1A