Radar Interferometric Analysis of Mining Induced Surface Subsidence Using Permanent Scatterer

We apply the permanent scatterer (PS) technique to interferometric ERS SAR observations to analyse the surface subsidence induced by hard coal mining activities at the ”Prosper-Haniel” mine (Ruhr region, Germany). Underground mining causes extensive subsidence of serveral meters and typically high subsidence rates at the earth‘s surface. We show that this approach is applicable for the measurement of displacements in underground mining based on long time-series. A condition for a successful derivation of subsidence on the PS is the integration of model data in the processing of the PS system. We use about 78 ERS-1/-2 scenes for our analysis. Extensive validation data are also used to constrain the spatial and temporal displacement field and verify the interferometric results.