Atmospheric phase screen estimation for land subsidence evaluation by InSAR time series analysis in Kurdistan, Iran

Atmospheric phase screen (APS) is one of the main error sources of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) measurements. In order to accurately retrieve displacement fields, it is necessary to use advanced methods to eliminate the tropospheric effect of interferograms. In this paper, the land subsidence in Kurdistan province of Iran is investigated using Sentinel-1A acquisitions on a single track for the period 2014–2018. The accurate and applicable 3D ray tracing technique is used to accurately estimate the APS. The ERA-I reanalysis data generated by European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) are used to implement the 3D ray tracing technique. In order to determine the effect of using the 3D ray tracing technique, the APSs are also determined using a traditional approach called, spatiotemporal filters method. To evaluate the capability of the two methods, the results are compared with the weather research and forecasting model (WRF) model. Finally, the interferograms are corrected using APSs from 3D ray tracing technique and traditional method and the subsidence rate in the study area is computed. Comparing the subsidence rates obtained from two APS estimation methods with piezometric data, GPS and precise levelling observations shows that the 3D ray tracing technique is significantly more accurate than traditional method in computing InSAR displacement fields.