Detection of Small-Scale Potential Landslides in Vegetation-Covered Areas of the Hengduan Mountains Using LT-1 Imagery: A Case Study of the Luding Seismic Zone

The rugged terrain and dense vegetation in the mountainous area of Luding after the strong earthquake have made geologic hazards hidden and difficult to verify, and there are limitations in the fine-resolution monitoring of small-scale landslides, especially in the area covered by high vegetation. Currently, there is a lack of research on the application of L-band LuTan-1 (LT-1) for landslide detection in the dense vegetation-covered area of the Luding strong earthquake zone, and it is necessary to carry out the analysis of the detection capability of LT-1 for small-scale landslide hazards under the complex terrain and dense vegetation area. In this study, the Stacking-InSAR method was employed using LT-1 and Sentinel-1 satellites to conduct deformation monitoring and landslide detection in the Luding seismic area and to investigate the small-scale landslide detection capability of LT-1 in vegetation-covered areas. The results show that LT-1 and Sentinel-1 identified 23 landslide hazards, and their obvious deformation and landslide characteristics indicate that they are still in an unstable state with a continuous deformation trend. At the same time, through the detection analysis of LT-1’s landslide detection capability under high vegetation cover and small-scale landslide detection capability, the results show that the long wavelength LT-1 can be more effective in landslide hazard identification and monitoring than the short wavelength, and LT-1 with high spatial resolution can be more refined to depict the landslide deformation characteristics in space, which demonstrates the great potential of LT-1 in the refinement of landslide detection. It shows the significant potential of the LT-1 satellite data in landslide detection. Finally, the effects of geometric distortion on landslide detection under different satellite orbits are analyzed, and it is necessary to adopt the combined monitoring method of elevating and lowering orbits for landslide detection to ensure the integrity and reliability of landslide detection. This study highlights the capability of the LT-1 satellite in monitoring landslides in complex mountainous terrain and underscores its potential for detecting small-scale landslides. The findings also offer valuable insights for future research on landslide detection using LT-1 data in similar challenging environments.