Detección de deformaciones activas en la Península Ibérica mediante datos Sentinel-1: resultados preliminares en Andalucía, Cataluña, y Murcia

The detection and monitoring of land movements caused by different geological and anthropic processes is essential to better understand the phenomenon that cause them and mitigate their adverse consequences. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) allows to create almost continuous deformation maps, and thanks to the Sentinel-1 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), any part of the Iberian Peninsula can be studied with a revisited frequency of 6 days. In this paper we present the results of a regional study focused on three pilot areas in Eastern Andalusia, Catalonia and Murcia. We have used data from the Sentinel-1 satellites (2015-2020 period) that were processed using tools from the ESA Geohazards Exploitation Platform. The deforming areas detected are related to a wide variety of processes, including land subsidence associated with different phenomena (groundwater extraction in aquifers, compaction of mining waste and dumps) and slow landslides affecting dams, abandoned mines and coastal urbanizations. Many of the deformation zones detected here were previously unknown, which highlights the importance of generating large-scale InSAR maps for the prevention and management of associated risks.