Lambiel, C. and Delaloye, R. and Strozzi, T. and Lugon, R. and Raetzo, H. (2008)

ERS InSAR for assessing rock glacier activity

Inproceedings
Cite key
Lambiel2008b
Language
en
Journal
Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, Fairbanks, Alaska
Pages
1019-1025
URL
http://my.unil.ch/serval/document/BIB_5A9BB99B2E45.pdf
Description
The potential of space-borne synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) to estimate both agnitude and spatialpattern of slope motion in a periglacial environment has been evaluated over a large area of the western Swiss Alps,using data from the ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites. About 280 active rock glaciers with different classes of velocitieshave been identified on the analysed interferograms. The velocities range from a few centimetres per year to severalmeters per year. This data was validated by some differential GPS measurements and compared to numerous fieldobservations. The resulting classification permits a better description of the full range of rock glaciers velocities anddynamics. Therefore, ERS InSAR reveals to be an efficient remote sensing technique, not only for inventorying activerock glaciers over a wide area, but also to estimate and categorize their displacement velocities.