Deformation Monitoring Exploration of Different Elevations in Western Sichuan, China

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is an invaluable tool for deformation monitoring. However, potential geological disaster hazards occurring in different elevation regions exhibit distinct surface deformation trends and distributions. The applicability of InSAR techniques at different elevations for monitoring potential geohazards remains uncertain. In this paper, the study area is firstly divided into typical geological disaster hazard zones based on mountainous elevation definition and SAR image elevation distribution, including areas below 1000 m, between 1000 m and 3500 m, and above 3500 m. Secondly, the spatial–temporal evolution characteristics of surface deformation from 2018 to 2020 in the study area are investigated, and potential geohazards are monitored by employing time-series InSAR techniques such as Persistent Scatterer InSAR (PS-InSAR), Small Baseline Subset InSAR (SBAS-InSAR), and Distributed Scatterer InSAR (DS-InSAR). Finally, the potential geological hazards detected by different InSAR monitoring algorithms are interpreted, and the characteristics of different InSAR monitoring algorithms in different elevation intervals are compared and analyzed. The results show that potential geological hazards are more frequent in areas between 1000 m and 3500 m in elevation, and DS-InSAR shows the best performance and accuracy in monitoring potential geological hazards in different elevation intervals.