Innovative methods for monitoring soil erosion: Utilizing InSAR technology effectively

• A conspicuous lack of quantitative techniques to monitor medium- to large-scale soil erosion. • InSAR offers large-scale, continuous, and millimeter-level ground elevation deformation data. • InSAR technology-based soil erosion monitoring research has spanned all seven continents. • The application of InSAR technology in soil erosion studies holds significant potential. Soil erosion is a critical form of land degradation, posing a significant threat to soil health and ecosystem productivity. Accurate monitoring of soil erosion is essential for robustly estimating erosion rates to better plan and develop effective mitigation management strategies. While there have been extensive studies and remarkable progress, existing soil erosion monitoring methods mainly focus on disparate spatial scales, ranging from point and plot scales to slope, watershed, and regional levels. The absence of quantitative techniques for monitoring soil erosion at medium to large scales represent a significant impediment to characterizing and understanding its spatiotemporal dynamics. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of existing soil erosion monitoring methods and to investigate the potential of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology to address this critical gap. A comprehensive analysis of soil erosion processes and monitoring approaches is presented, evaluating the applicability of InSAR for monitoring large-scale soil erosion. Our analysis reveals that over 50 % of InSAR-based soil erosion monitoring studies have been conducted in China (37.2 %) and Italy (14.0 %). The findings indicate that InSAR offers the capability to acquire continuous, large-scale ground elevation deformation data with millimeter-level precision. Its successful application in monitoring urban subsidence and landslides suggests its potential for analyzing erosion at medium to large scales. The time-series data provided by InSAR are invaluable for elucidating the temporal evolution of erosion processes. Despite challenges related to atmospheric disturbances, noise, and maintaining phase coherence, further development of InSAR techniques for soil erosion studies is warranted. Future studies should prioritize refining the efficiency and accuracy of methodologies designed to address the complexities of soil erosion, thereby providing innovative tools and a robust scientific foundation for improved monitoring and management practices.