Surface Deformation of New York City from Multitemporal Interferometric Analysis of Sentinel-1 SAR Datasets

TL;DR

This study utilizes multitemporal SAR interferometry on Sentinel-1 data to map surface deformation in New York City with high resolution, revealing subsidence and uplift patterns over several years.

Contribution

It introduces an advanced multitemporal SAR interferometric method applied to Sentinel-1 data for detailed urban surface deformation analysis.

Findings

Detected subsidence and uplift rates up to 25.7 mm/yr and 8.7 mm/yr.

Provided deformation velocity maps for nearly 1.8 million pixels.

Achieved unprecedented spatial resolution and accuracy in urban deformation monitoring.

Abstract

Sentinel-1, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of the Copernicus program, provides Free and Open Data with global coverage, transforming our ability to monitor subtle changes in land surface elevation due to natural and anthropogenic process. Here, we use SAR datasets over New York spanning 2015/03/12 to 2022/08/26 and apply an advanced multitemporal SAR interferometric algorithm to measure rates and time series of surface deformation at an unprecedented resolution and accuracy. We found Line-Of-Sight (LOS) subsidence and uplift rates of up to 25.7 -+ 0.2 mm/yr and 8.7 -+ 0.3 mm/yr affecting parts of the city. The LOS velocities, standard deviations, and local incidence angles for ~1,792,000 pixels at ~25m -+ 25 m resolution are provided in an online repository.