Abstract:
The terrain deformations in urban and industrial areas pose serious risk to human lives and cause significant economic losses. One modern method to register them is to use information produced by processing data acquired by satellite borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR). In order to produce this information large time series of SAR data processed by DInSAR method should be available. Thanks to the open data policy of ESA from continuous and regular SAR data acquisitions it was made possible to assess the ongoing surface displacements in the region of the town of Pernik, Bulgaria. In this region a large number of mining and industrial plants are located mainly dealing with coal and steel production and processing serviced by a railways and highways. Also the density of the population in the area is high and for this reason to have large residential and utility areas as well. All mentioned industrial, infrastructural and urban sites could be heavily affected by slow ground movements in case those are not properly and timely monitored. This is the reason the authors created short time series with information produced from ascending and descending orbits of Sentinel-1 mission to assess the ongoing geodynamic processes in this region. Those results could be used by the local authorities to prepare plans for mitigation of those unfavourable impacts.