Name
Satellite interferometry for regional assessment of landslide hazard to pipelines in northeastern British Columbia, Canada
Description
Pipelines are a critical component of transportation infrastructure. They offer the safest and most efficient way to transport large volumes of oil and natural gas from development areas to refineries and consumers. Landslides can damage pipelines resulting in a spill of a toxic substance. However, landslide hazards to pipelines and other infrastructure can be significantly reduced, if the location of landslides is known and the appropriate mitigation measures are taken in advance. Traditional, ground-based methods for mapping areas susceptible to landslides can be expensive and limited. Radar interferometry is a remote sensing technique that measures ground deformation from two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. Time series of ground deformation computed from repeatedly acquired SAR data allows us to detect slow-moving, deep-seated landslides over a large area with high spatial resolution and precision. European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellite systematically collects SAR data worldwide, and large datasets have been collected since approximately 2016-2017. A combination of improved availability of SAR data, inexpensive processing power and advanced processing techniques designed for large datasets provides an opportunity to map ground deformation on a regional scale. The study's objective is to compare deformation maps, as proxies of landslide hazard, computed from commercial RADARSAT-2 data and freely available Sentinel-1 data over a region in northeast British Columbia, Canada, with an extensive network of pipelines located in proximity to slow-moving landslides. It is concluded that readily available Sentinel-1 data can produce high-quality deformation maps capable of detecting slow-moving landslides.