Abstract: Persistent scatterer InSAR was used to detect surface subsidence in the area around the Yangbajing geothermal power plant due to extraction of ground water with twenty high resolution TerraSAR-X spotlight SAR images collected between March and November 2010.The results suggest that land subsidence in the areas of geothermal wells is up to 25 mm·a-1 whilst the subsidence in the basin is less than 1 mm·a-1.And the correlation between TerraSAR-X and ASAR derived mean velocities is 0.76.TerraSAR-X high resolution spotlight SAR images can provide higher density of PS points than ASAR data,and also can reveal the detail change and micro-displacement in a single ground object.