Detection and Monitoring of Potential Landslides Along Minjiang River Valley in Maoxian County, Sichuan Using Radar Remote Sensing

  Objectives  Affected by geological and topographic conditions as well as tectonic activities, landslide disasters in Maoxian County, Sichuan Province happen frequently and constitute a significant threat to the safety of human life and civil infrastructure. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and monitor potential landslide-prone areas effectively.

  Methods  We applied the time-series interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) analysis technique to process both ascending and descending Sentinel-1 data stacks from November 2014 to June 2017 to identify and monitor potential landslides in the valley along Minjiang River in Maoxian County. We conducted detailed and in-depth analyses of the critical areas identified. Meanwhile, we analyzed and discussed the sensitivity of InSAR line of sight (LOS) deformation measurements retrieved from SAR data stacks acquired in different orbits.

  Results  More than 20 potential landslide spots from Goukou Township to Shidaguan Township along the valley of Minjiang River in Maoxian County have been detected. The accuracy of deformation detection is validated by field survey.

  Conclusions  The results show that the time-series InSAR method can effectively identify and monitor landslide hazards in alpine and valley areas. We suggest that the difference in LOS deformation measurement sensitivity on different slopes should be considered when analyzing the deformation patterns.