Systematic PSI processing over Santorini volcano: the 2012-2016 post unrest period

In the framework of the ESA funded project “Disaster Risk Reduction using innovative data exploitation methods and space assets”, the National Observatory of Athens together with Terradue customized a GEP implementation of the StaMPS suite of s/w modules, to automatically process stacks of SAR imagery using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry. The engine is now able to seamlessly and timely process data from Envisat, ERS-1,2, TerraSAR-X, COSMO-SkyMed and Radarsat-2 platforms, for user-defined Regions Of Interest. Hence, the concept of project’s “Trial Case VO-1” is to modify, customize, execute and test a fully automatic processing chain over the GEP, starting from raw/SLC SAR data, to ground velocities generation.

The new capabilities have been tested for an historic volcano in Santorini island, Greece, aiming to create a unique database of diachronic InSAR measurements spanning from 1992 to 2015 (~23 years of data). The processing of the five different SAR stacks was done entirely within the GEP environment, in the context of the Trial Case VO-1. The thematic map included herein contains the estimated Line-Of-Sight ground velocities (mm/yr) for the period 2012-2016, based on 20 descending Radarsat-2 images. Kindly note that the product is raw and has not gone through any manual post-processing. Therefore, adjustments may need to be made to address reference point issues, isolated phase unwrapping errors, etc.