15 years of SAR Interferometry

Abstract

Since the end of ‘80s a technique based on the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from Earth-orbiting instruments has been developed. The approach, known as SAR Interferometry (InSAR) is able to provide accurate measurements of the Earth’s surface deformations due to geological and geophysical phenomena, as earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions. In the timeframe of less than two decades InSAR technique spread throughout a wide range of Earth science fields. During these years a huge number of applications has been performed and a vast amount of theoretical and applicative manuscript are available in literature today. Recent improvements of InSAR lead to the development of a new approach, referred to as Advanced InSAR (A-InSAR) techniques, addressed to the monitoring of slow movements along time. This work does not attempt to be a comprehensive review of the theory and application of InSAR and A-InSAR, but it would provide a basic overview of these techniques.