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Subsidence monitoring by integration of time series analysis from different SAR images and impact assessment of stress and aquitard thickness on subsidence in Tehran, Iran

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Abstract

In recent decades, agricultural plains have been subject to significant subsidence in different parts of the world including Iran. Tehran plain is one of these parts exposed to land subsidence. In this paper, as the most effective method to monitor the subsidence, synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) makes use of two radar images to measure the ground surface deformation between two acquisitions. For this purpose, two different radar datasets including 16 ENVISAT ASAR images spanning from 2003 to 2008 and 12 Sentinel-1A images spanning from 2016 to 2017 were applied in InSAR small baseline subset (SBAS) time series analysis. Two distinct subsidence time series achieved from the two datasets were integrated using an appropriate model which was fitted to all data obtained from two time series results from 2003 to 2017 and verified running leveling measurements. The average value of the root mean square errors (RMSEs) calculated between the model and the achieved time series at all pixels is 0.02 m which is an illustration of the accuracy of the proposed model to join the two deformation time series results. Furthermore, the integration results were additionally used to discover the storage properties of the aquifer system by stress–strain relationship and the effect of aquitard thickness on subsidence of Tehran plain by subsidence-aquitard thickness (fine-grained interbed) relationship, respectively. The stress–strain relationship shows a low correlation between subsidence and groundwater exploitation where a direct relationship between subsidence and aquitard thickness is clearly obvious.

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Availability of data and material

European Space Agency (ESA) provided the InSAR and Sentinel-1A images.

Code availability

The MATLAB code is used.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the European Space Agency (ESA) and the University of California at San Diego for providing the images data and GMTSAR software, respectively. They also convey their deep gratitude to the National Cartographic Center (NCC) of Iran for collecting the leveling measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

    Roghayeh Yousefi & Nasser Talebbeydokhti

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  1. Roghayeh Yousefi
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  2. Nasser Talebbeydokhti
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Correspondence to Roghayeh Yousefi.

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Yousefi, R., Talebbeydokhti, N. Subsidence monitoring by integration of time series analysis from different SAR images and impact assessment of stress and aquitard thickness on subsidence in Tehran, Iran. Environ Earth Sci 80, 418 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-09714-3

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