Analysis of deformation over permafrost regions of Qinghai-Tibet plateau based on permanent scatterers

Abstract

The surface displacement by seasonally freezing bulge and thawing subsidence are the main hazards for engineering construction in permafrost regions, especially for the Qinghai-Tibet railway. One of the main problems is how to monitor the frozen ground's displacement in the process of construction and protection of the Qinghai-Tibetan railway. The technology of Permanent Scatterers (PS) has been successfully used to detect the long-term subsidence at urban areas. For detecting the subsidence of the frozen earth on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, this paper extended the capability of the technology of PS to investigate deformation phenomena in vegetated area. The paper analyses an interferometric phase model, and presents improved PS algorithms for separating different components in interferometric phase. The proposed technique is implemented using ENVISAT ASAR images to detect the deformation over permafrost region of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The results are in concordance with results provided by a traditional ground levelling, which encourages future development using the Permanent Scatterers method to analyse deformation of the frozen earth on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.