Persistent Scatterer Interferometry for
Pettimudi (India) Landslide Monitoring
using Sentinel-1A Images
Hari Shankar, Arijit Roy, and Prakash Chauhan
Abstract
The continuous monitoring of land surface movement over
time is of paramount importance for assessing landslide
triggering factors and mitigating landslide hazards. This
research focuses on measuring horizontal and vertical surface
displacement due to a devastating landslide event in the
west-facing slope of the Rajamala Hills, induced by intense
rainfall. The landslide occurred in Pettimudi, a tea-plantation
village of the Idukki district in Kerala, India, on August
6–7, 2020. The persistent-scatterer synthetic aperture radar
interferometry (PSInSAR) technique, along with the Stanford
Method for Persistent Scatterers (StaMPS), was applied to
investigate the land surface movement over time. A stack
of 20 Sentinel-1A single-look complex images (19 interfero-
grams) acquired in descending passes was used for PSInSAR
processing. The line-of-sight (LOS) displacement in long time
series, and hence the average LOS velocity, was measured at
each measurement-point location. The mean LOS velocity
was decomposed into horizontal east–west (EW) and verti-
cal up–down velocity components. The results show that
the mean LOS, EW, and up–down velocities in the study Delivered by Ingenta
area, respectively, range from −18.76 IP: 5.10.31.210
to +11.88, −10.95On:
to Wed, 19
+6.93, and −15.05 to +9.53Copyright:
mm/y, and American Society for Photogrammetry
the LOS displacement
ranges from −19.60 to +19.59 mm. The displacement values
clearly indicate the instability of the terrain. The time-series
LOS displacement trends derived from the applied PSInSAR
technique are very useful for providing valuable inputs
for disaster management and the development of disaster
early-warning systems for the benefit of local residents.
Introduction
Landslides are the downslope displacement of a specific
mass characterized by debris, rock, or a mixture thereof due
to Earth’s gravity or instability of terrain structures. Non-flat
terrain structures only exist when there is a balance between
restrictive (cohesive and friction) and gravitational forces that
prevents the flattening of the terrain. Several researchers have
observed and analyzed various mechanisms for relating ter-
rain stability (slope) and pore pressure, especially in rainfall-
induced landslide events (Iverson and Major 1986; Johnson
and Sitar 1990; Fannin and Jaakkola 1999). A continuously
changing environment has a greater influence on the occur-
rence of rainfall-induced landslides in the short and long
terms, both locally and regionally (Glade and Crozier 2010).
The Western Ghats Region (WGR) during the past six de-
cades has been frequently affected by large and catastrophic
landslides due to reckless deforestation and urbanization.
Hari Shankar, Arijit Roy, and Prakash Chauhan are with the
Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, India, 248001
(hari5918phy@gmail.com, harishankar@iirs.gov.in).
Contributed by Zhenfeng Shao, April 14, 2021 (sent for review May 24,
2021; reviewed by Su Zhang, Xiaolian Li).
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING Nove m ber 2021 853
Catastrophic landslides have been reported in 2020, 2018,
2005, 1997, 1989, 1977, and 1958. Due to changing climatic
patterns, the South Indian state of Kerala (a part of the WGR)
has experienced heavy monsoon rainfall in the past few
years, leading to multiple hazards including several cata-
strophic landslides and flood events. The monsoon pattern in
Kerala used to arrive every year at a specific time in the first
or second week of June, but now it shows significant varia-
tion—especially in the last two years—with a relatively drier
monsoon spell in the month of July and intense rainfall in
the month of August. Previously, the spatial and temporal
distribution of rainfall were uniform all through Kerala dur-
ing rainy season. Now the spatial distribution of rainfall had
also changed, and there are significant events of localized
high-intensity rainfall. In 2018, the rainfall distribution was
clustered in the central and southern parts of Kerala (Hunt
and Menon 2020), and in 2019 it shifted to the northernmost
parts of the state (Krishnan et al. 2020). This year (2020), it
was in the eastern part of the state—that is, the Idukki and
Wayanad districts (Krishnan et al. 2020). A number of stud-
ies have indicated the change in rain pattern over the entire
WGRJul(Mishra
2023 05:09:42
et al. 2018; Hunt and Menon 2020; Krishnan et
and Remote
al. 2020; Kulkarni Sensing
et al., 2020; Wadhawan et al. 2020). The
Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment has predicted
an increase in atmospheric temperature and extreme precipi-
tation events associated with floods in the WGR due to a rise in
sea surface temperature (Sharma and Chauhan 2011).
Various anthropogenic activities have resulted in geo-
metric changes in the form of ground surface movement in
the vertical or horizontal directions. These movements can
be measured using various techniques such as terrestrial
(leveling, high-precision global position system, etc.), pho-
togrammetry, laser scanning, microgravity, and differential
synthetic aperture radar interferometry (DInSAR) techniques.
In situ measurement techniques have limited measurement
scope, because of small area coverage, very high costs of
field surveying and instruments, and time consumption due
to multiple point measurements with limited measurement
frequency. Space-based techniques have various advantages
over in situ ones, including low cost, fast measurement speed
and frequency, and large area coverage. Modern space-based
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems are capable of acquir-
ing images of a location of interest irrespective of weather
conditions and acquisition time, and have multi-frequency,
multi-resolution, and multi-polarization capabilities. SAR
images give an opportunity to detect and characterize ground
surface movement over time with significantly high accuracy
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 87, No. 11, November 2021, pp. 853–862.
0099-1112/21/853–862
© 2021 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.21-00020R3
(to a few millimeters). SAR technology is a mature technology,
and recent advancements in the field of SAR interferometry
and polarimetry enable the estimation of land surface move-
ments along the line of sight (LOS) of the SAR sensor or along
the vertical and horizontal directions with high confidence.
The availability of free and open-source SAR data has resulted
in extensive use of these data along with the development of
new algorithms and approaches for generating new products
from SAR, especially for disaster-management support. The
assessment of various causative geo-factors of most landslide-
and flood-prone areas in Kerala, along with rigorous field-data
collection by a team of experts, is described by Wadhawan
et al. (2020). A complete event-based monsoon-induced
landslide inventory of Kerala for the year 2018, with 4728
listings, was constructed by Hao et al. (2020) using two sub-
inventories generated by object-based satellite image analysis
and field survey. The data sets for this inventory are available
online (https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-x6c-y7x2).Three differ-
ent statistical models with 12 landslide conditioning factors
were applied by Achu et al. (2020) to model the landslide
susceptibility of the southern parts of the WGR. An inventory
spatial database of 82 landslides was generated, and landslide
conditioning factors were extracted from the database for
modeling and producing landslide susceptibility maps. The
authors indicate that agricultural land falling on denuded
hills with slopes between 10° and 40° are extremely suscepti-
ble to landslides, with extended influence from distance from
roads, distance from streams, and soil textures.
DInSAR techniques evolved from the analysis of a single
interferogram (classical DInSAR) to interferogram stacking
(summation of temporal interferograms), small baseline subset A general framework to exploit the polarimetric diversity
(SBAS) processing creating an interferogram network of small
spatial baselines, and persistent-scatterer interferometry (PSI)
techniques. PSI, an advanced DInSAR technique, is effective
in processing stable and coherent scatterers using multiple
Delivered 2014a).
IP: 5.10.31.210
interferograms and results in time-series deformation signals
On: Wed,
Copyright: American Society for Photogrammetry
in the form of deformation maps.
In 2000, the first PSI technique was developed; it was
termed the permanent-scatterer approach (Ferretti et al. 2000,
2001) and patented as the PSInSAR algorithm, with amplitude
dispersion as a persistent-scatterer (PS) selection criterion.
This PSInSAR algorithm represented the first complete solution
of time-series deformation analysis and was a crucial step
forward from traditional DInSAR techniques. This revolution-
ary work was followed by numerous other contributions in
the field of deformation measurement. The extended version
of the PSInSAR algorithm (Colesanti et al. 2003) was proposed
to monitor ground deformation based on seasonal varia-
tions over a subset of image pixels from natural and created
environments. The PSInSAR application developed by Ferretti
et al. (2000, 2001) was for monitoring the vertical up-and-
down motion of land in the San Francisco Bay Area (Ferretti
et al. 2004). The well-known lambda method used in global
positioning systems was adapted by Kampes and Hanssen
(2004) to resolve the ambiguity of PSI, and later it was used in
the STUN (spatiotemporal unwrapping network) algorithm
(Kampes 2006). A new algorithm (Berardino et al. 2002) was
developed for SBAS-DInSAR, in which an optimal stack of
differential interferograms with smaller orbital baselines was
used to minimize the decorrelation effect. The linear and non-
linear displacements were measured using an advanced tech-
nique described by Mora et al. (2003) based on a minimized
set of low-spatial-resolution interferometric SAR images.
A new PSI procedure (Hooper et al. 2004) with higher-order
phase unwrapping and a novel PS selection criterion based on
phase characteristics rather than amplitude dispersion was
developed to measure discontinuous crustal deformation in
natural (non-urban) environments, using the most widely used
854 Novem b er 2 0 21 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
PSI software package, called the Stanford Method for Persistent
Scatterers (StaMPS; Hooper et al. 2007; Hooper and Zebker 2007;
Hooper 2008). Post-event monitoring of the landslide in the
Idukki district of Kerala, India, was also performed by Jennifer
et al. (2020). Submillimeter estimation accuracy of InSAR
time-series measurements has been assessed and validated
experimentally using a set of four artificial reflectors (Ferretti
et al. 2007) in horizontal and vertical directions. The SBAS
approach has been exploited without significant modifications
to produce deformation time series over a multi-sensor (ERS,
Envisat, and ALOS) SAR data set with temporal overlap of the SAR
acquisitions (Pepe et al. 2005; Kim et al. 2015; Liu et al. 2020).
An advanced algorithm for deformation estimation in a natural
environment by considering distributed scatterers (DSs)—that is,
pixels of moderate coherence and stable phase—was developed
by Goel and Adam (2012). The precise phase and coherence
were estimated using small baseline interferograms, adaptive
phase filtering, and a removal strategy for residual topography
error. In 2009, two major team exercises were executed—in the
form of the European Space Agency’s PSIC4 project (Raucoules
et al. 2009), and the Terrafirma validation project (Adam et al.
2009)—for product and process validation of the PSI technique.
The Terrafirma project achieved exciting results and meaning-
ful conclusions by comparing PSI results from different teams,
derived from same stack of ERS and Envisat data.
A major step forward in the traditional PSInSAR algorithm
was made possible by the SqueeSAR algorithm (Ferretti et al.
2011), combining PS and DS processing without significant
change in the entire processing chain of the existing PSInSAR
algorithm and phase unwrapping of multiple interferograms.
of dual-polarized data to optimize PSI results was presented
by Navarro-Sanchez and Lopez-Sanchez (2012), and further
extended for fully polarimetric data (Navarro-Sanchez et al.
by IngentaA new PSInSAR method (Cao et al. 2016) based on
19 Jul 2023 05:09:42
phase decomposition was developed to improve the inter-
and Remote Sensing
ferometric coherence, spatial density, and phase stability of
measurement points. Those authors performed eigen-value
decomposition on a coherency matrix (instead of a covari-
ance matrix) to estimate the stable phases corresponding
to the different scattering mechanisms. Higher-order phase
unwrapping in the temporal and spatial dimensions of stacks
of interferograms is one of the most challenging steps of the
PSI techniques, which has been addressed by several authors
(Berardino et al. 2002; Colesanti et al. 2003; Kampes 2006;
Iglesias et al. 2014a). After a long, rigorous literature survey
in the field of applied technique and applications of advanced
DInSAR techniques in the study area, we identified the follow-
ing gaps: most of the studies targeted measurement of LOS
displacement, not horizontal and vertical displacements, and
very few studies were found for monitoring rainfall-induced
landslides using space-based SAR data in Kerala.
In this study, a powerful space-based DInSAR technique—
PSI—was applied for time-series measurement of a landslide
event at Pettimudi village in the Idukki district of Kerala,
India. The PSI analysis was carried out using the StaMPS/
MTI (multi-temporal InSAR) method, developed by Stanford
University, the University of Iceland, Delft University of
Technology, and the University of Leeds, and written in
MATLAB and C++. The main objective of this study was the
measurement of LOS, horizontal (east–west), and vertical (up–
down) displacements at the landslide location at Pettimudi
using pre- and post-event Sentinel-1A (C-band SAR) single-
polarized (VV) images acquired in descending orbit. The main
research question was: How can LOS, horizontal, and vertical
displacements be measured using time-series SAR images
acquired in similar orbit passes?
Materials and Methodology
Study Region
The study area chosen for this research (Figure 1) is on the
western slopes of the WGR and lies between 9°59ʹ31.56″ N and
10°22ʹ38.64″ N latitude and 76°53ʹ30.12″ E and 77°14ʹ18.24″ E
longitude. The total study area is 1143.48 km2, with eleva-
tion ranging between 297 and 2451.7 m above mean sea
level. The exact location of the 2020 landslide event is at
10°09ʹ39.6″ N, 77°00ʹ39.6″ E (Google location: https://goo.
gl/maps/eeJ1AEEL5ZT9kJQcA). The majority of the Idukki
district is covered with forest patches, followed by narrow
valleys. Pettimudi village in the Rajamala Hills is just few
kilometers from the hill station of Munnar in the northeast
direction. The study region experiences a tropical monsoon
climate with two different periods: southwest and northeast
monsoons. The southwest monsoon normally occurs every
year during June–September and alone contributes up to 80%
of total rainfall in the WGR. The contribution of the northeast
monsoon is comparatively small, and normally occurs during
October–December. In 2020, as a result of the extreme pre-
cipitation-induced landslide event on August 6–7, there was
extensive loss of human life associated with infrastructural,
ecological, and economic losses. In a span of 24 h, parts of
the Rajamala Hills near the Pettimudi tea estate received 616
mm of rainfall, leading to a large-scale landslide in the early
hours of August 7. The Pettimudi landslide buried hundreds
of families under mud and debris of their own houses. More
than 50 residents lost their lives, and around 150 people were
directly affected.
Delivered by Ingenta
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Copyright: American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
Figure 1. Extent of the study region.
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING Nove m ber 2021 855
Over 30% of the Idukki district is prone to rainfall-induced
landslides; the district is in the top four landslide-prone dis-
tricts in Kerala. The topographical variability associated with
around 5 m of topsoil on the mountain slopes provides prime
conditions for rainfall-induced landslides. The land instability
is extremely critical in the northeastern part of the district, near
Munnar and surrounding areas. Of the 123 villages identified as
the most vulnerable in the WGR, 48 are from the Idukki district
(Kasturirangan et al. 2013). Mining activities, thermal power
plants, and construction projects above a certain size are still
banned in the region. The main causes of frequent landslide
hazards in the Idukki district are changing rainfall patterns and
intense high rainfall in short spans of time due to the monsoon
rhythm, land fragmentation including mono-cropping in some
parts of the district, and unscientific road construction and wid-
ening, and allied activities, on hillslopes and adjoining areas.
Satellite Data
The preparatory work for this study included pre- and post-
event acquisition of spaceborne SAR images from the Sentinel-
1A (C-band) satellite. Twenty single-look complex SAR images
(level 1.0) with VV polarization captured in descending orbit
and wide interferometric mode over the study region were
used for measuring the deformation due to the landslide
event. To generate a single master interferogram, the coher-
ence was modeled for each master–slave combination and the
master image was selected corresponding to the maximum
sum of coherence. Table 1 presents the acquisition date, per-
pendicular and temporal baselines, and modeled coherence of
each image scene with respect to the master image.
Mathematical Formulation of PSI
The electric field vector of the electromagnetic signal—that is,
the SAR signal—is a complex signal that contains amplitude
and phase information. If two such complex electromagnetic
signals interfere with each other, they form interference
fringes (an interferogram). In DInSAR measurements, the two
SAR echoes (backscatter signals) are being captured from two
different satellite orbital locations in time or position. For
convenience, let a single point target P on the ground first
be imaged from satellite position C, and then let the same
point target be moved on the ground from position P to Q and
imaged from satellite position D. Assume that ϕC and ϕD are
the estimated phases of the SAR signals when acquired from
satellite positions C and D, respectively. In this situation, the
interferometric phase Δϕint is given as
4π
∆ϕint = ϕ D − ϕC = (DQ − CP) + ϕscatt − D − ϕscatt −C
λ SAR interferograms, all phase contributions in Equation 4 are
or
4π 4π
∆ϕint = (DP − CP) + (DQ − DP) + ϕscatt − D − ϕscatt −C
λ λ
where CP, DP, and DQ are the distances between satellite
orbital position C and point target P, satellite position D and
point target P, and satellite position D and point target Q,
respectively, and ϕscatt–C and ϕscatt–D are the scattering phase
components of SAR signals transmitted from satellite orbital
positions C and D. In Equation 2, the first and second terms
on the right-hand side represent the topographic phase ϕtopo
and displacement phase ϕdisp in the satellite LOS direction,
respectively. The availability of an accurate digital elevation
model (DEM) for the images canceled out the last two terms
of Equation 2. The ϕtopo can be simulated, and thus ϕdisp can
be calculated by subtracting ϕtopo from Δϕint. Thus the DInSAR
IP: 5.10.31.210 On: Wed, 19 Jul 2023
phase ΔϕD–int can be obtained as
Copyright: American Society for Photogrammetry
4π
∆ϕ D − int = ∆ϕ int − ϕtopo _ simu = ( DQ − DP ) = ϕdisp
λ scattering vectors, respectively, of the ith and jth acquisitions;
The simulated topographic phase ϕtopo_simu indirectly con-
tains a flat-earth phase component. Moreover, it is affected
by orbital inaccuracies, atmospheric delay (inhomogeneities),
and decorrelation noise. Therefore, the comprehensive form
of Equation 3 is
∆ϕ D − int = ϕdisp + ϕ topo_res + ∆ϕorb + ∆ϕatm + ϕ noise + 2π a (4)
where the second and fifth terms on the right-hand side
indicate phase components due to residual topography error,
and decorrelation noise, respectively, and the third and fourth
terms denote the phase differences due to orbital inaccura-
cies and atmospheric variations during both acquisitions. The
last term on the right-hand side is due to the wrapped nature
of interferometric phase, where a is a positive integer called
phase ambiguity. Moreover, differential interferometric phases
(1) are bound in the range [–π, π] —that is, 2π. In multi-temporal
present and mixed together. Atmospheric phase components
are spatially correlated (and sometimes temporally correlat-
(2)
ed), whereas decorrelation noise is spatially uncorrelated but
temporally correlated.
The scattering vectors, scattering matrices, and coherency
matrices for single, dual, and fully polarimetric SAR data sets
have been previously described (Iglesias et al. 2014b; Mullissa
et al. 2018). Optimization of coherence increases the quality
of the differential phase and density of measurement points
(PS and DS) during PSI processing (Neumann et al. 2008;
Iglesias et al. 2014b; Navarro-Sanchez et al. 2014b; Mullissa et
al. 2018). For a single baseline, both polarimetric and inter-
ferometric information can be combined by a metric called
the polarimetric interferometric coherency matrix:
Delivered by Ingenta  Tii Ω ij  T
z = KK = †  , with K =  k i k j 
† T T
05:09:42 (5)
Ω
 ij Tjj 
and Remote Sensing
(3) where Tii and Tjj and ki and kj are the coherency matrices and
Ωij(i≠j) is the baseline-dependent polarimetric interferomet-
ric correlation matrix between the ith and jth acquisitions

Table 1. Master–slave pair selection of Sentinel-1A images for interferogram generation.

Image Acquisition Orbit Perpendicular Temporal Modeled
No. Master/Slave Date No. Baseline (m) Baseline (d) Coherence
1 Slave 2 Dec 2019 30162 45.41 168 0.81
2 Slave 26 Dec 2019 30512 53.51 144 0.83
3 Slave 2020/01/07 30687 −11.04 132 0.87
4 Slave 31 Jan 2020 31037 11.78 108 0.89
5 Slave 12 Feb 2020 31212 44.76 96 0.88
6 Slave 24 Feb 2020 31387 26.78 84 0.90
7 Slave 7 Mar 2020 31562 57.24 72 0.89
8 Slave 31 Mar 2020 31912 −9.52 48 0.95
9 Slave 12 Apr 2020 32087 −5.95 36 0.96
10 Slave 24 Apr 2020 32262 65.04 24 0.92
11 Master 18 May 2020 32612 0.0 0.0 1.0
12 Slave 30 May 2020 32787 −40.28 −12 0.95
13 Slave 11 Jun 2020 32962 −20.83 −24 0.96
14 Slave 23 Jun 2020 33137 27.25 −36 0.94
15 Slave 5 Jul 2020 33312 −48.43 −48 0.92
16 Slave 29 Jul 2020 33662 88.76 −72 0.86
17 Slave 10 Aug 2020 33837 24.02 −84 0.90
18 Slave 22 Aug 2020 34012 −20.81 −96 0.90
19 Slave 3 Sep 2020 34187 −16.53 −108 0.89
20 Slave 15 Sep 2020 34362 32.19 −120 0.87

856 Novem b er 2 0 21 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING

(Neumann et al. 2008); and † and T designate the transpose
conjugate and transpose operator, respectively.
The complex interferometric coherence γij (which indicates
the similarity or cross correlation between two signals) is
formulated for a pair of complex SAR images in any arbitrary
polarimetric basis ωi and ωj by projecting the scattering vec-
tors ki and kj (Neumann et al. 2008; Navarro-Sanchez et al.
2014b) onto the complex unitary vector ωi:
λi λ *j
( )
γ ij ω i , ω j = γ ij e iϕ =
λi λ *i λj λ *j
=
ω i Tii ωi ω j Tjj ω j
where † and * indicate the averaging and complex conjugate
operators, respectively, and ϕ and λi are the interferometric
phase and complex scalar. In the multi-baseline approach, for
equal scattering (Neumann et al. 2008), ωi = ωj = ω, whereas
for multi-scattering, ωi ≠ ωj. In the latter case, an individual
optimal polarization is calculated for every acquisition which
correlates highly with the other tracks. Thus for the multi-
baseline case, the interferometric coherence Γ is expressed as
 1 γ 12 γ 1n 
γ * 1 γ
1 and that of αH (satellite heading) is around −15° for ascending
Γ= ∑SS = 
N w K ∈η
† 12
 *
 γ 1n γ 2 n
*
where η represents a patch of homogeneous pixels containing
Nw pixels and S = [s1 … sn]T is the normalized polarimetric
scattering coefficient of a stack of n images, with
λi
si = , with λ i = ω i k i
λi λ i
* Delivered by Ingenta
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Copyright: American Society for Photogrammetry
It is important to note that Γ is distinctly different from the
polarimetric coherency matrix T and the polarimetric inter-
ferometric coherency matrix Z, as it contains only interfero-
metric information. Each element of the Hermitian positive
semidefinite matrix Γ is a complex interferometric coherence
γij, which contains the interferometric coherence amplitude
(modulus) and the interferometric phase (argument). The
phase contributions due to flat earth and topography must be
removed from the off-diagonal elements of Γ before spatial
phase filtering is applied.
Optimizing interferometric coherence targets calculating
the best value of ω that maximizes the average coherence
amplitudes of the interferograms. For fully polarimetric SAR
acquisitions, the complex unitary projection vector ω can be
represented in terms of characteristic physical parameters of
the radar target. Hence, it is parameterized as
 cos α 
 
ω = e iδ sin α cosβ 
 e iθ sin α sinβ 
where α∈[0,π/2] is the physical scattering mechanism, β∈[0,π]
is the target orientation angle with respect to the radar LOS,
and δ∈[0,π] and θ∈[–π,π] are the co-polar and cross-polar
phase angles, respectively.
For dual- and single-polarized data, respectively, ω reduces
to
 cos α 
ω =  iδ
e sin α 
and ω = [ cos α ]

PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING Nove m ber 2021 857
In both the single- and multi-baseline cases, the optimal
value of ω can be obtained by numerical optimization—such
as the conjugate gradient descent method (Fletcher and
Reeves 1964)—of the parameters of the radar target as de-
scribed in Equations 9 and 10.
After all other unwanted phase components of Equation
4 are removed, the displacement phase component is ex-
tracted and converted into the LOS displacement vector. The
LOS displacement can further decomposed into east–west
ω+i Ω ij ω j (EW), north–south (NS), and vertical up–down displacements
(6) (Fernandez et al. 2018; Fuhrmann and Garthwaite 2019;
Dumont et al. 2020; Ho Tong Minh et al. 2020):
 v EW 
 
 v NS  = [ − sin θ sin µ − sin θ cos µ cos θ ] . [v LOS ] (11)
v updown 
 
where θ is the incidence angle, μ is the look direction of the
satellite heading vector, and [vEW vNS  vupdown] are the EW, NS,
and vertical up–down components of mean LOS velocity. For
right-looking radar, the value of μ is equal to αH – 3π/2 for
both ascending and descending passes (Dumont et al. 2020),

2 n 

(7) passes and around −165° for descending passes (Fuhrmann
 and Garthwaite 2019). Equation 11 has two observational
1  constraints from LOS measurements and are three unknowns
(velocity components). It is only possible to calculate three
velocity components if there is one more observational con-
straint present in Equation 11. Moreover, SAR satellites follow
a path along the NS (azimuth) direction in both ascending and
descending passes, and thus the NS component of LOS veloc-
ity is insensitive and assumed to be zero (Ho Tong Minh et al.
(8) 2020). In this way, the EW and up–down velocity components
On: Wed, 19 canJul
be 2023
measured accurately using Equation 11. Thus the EW
05:09:42
and vertical and
up–down
Remote components
Sensing of LOS velocity (Fernandez
et al. 2018) can also be expressed as
v EW = −sinθ sinµ v LOS and v updown = cosθ v LOS (12)
Methodology Used
The methodology adopted in this study is shown in Figure
2 in the form of a flowchart. All the Sentinel-1A (Level 1.0,
single-look complex) products were imported into SNAP 8.0
software for preprocessing. Two bursts over the study region
were split from all the images and stacked together after
application of the respective precise Sentinel-1A orbit files
and selection of a single master image. A back geo-coding
algorithm was used for S1-TOPS co-registration, along with the
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1sec HGT DEM and
bisinc 21-point interpolation as a DEM resampling method
(Table 2). The range and azimuth phase shifts were corrected
(9) by enhancing spectral diversity before single master interfero-
grams were generated, topographic phase was removed, and
Goldstein phase filtering was applied. The enhanced spectral
diversity and filtered interferogram products were de-bursted
to interpolate the gap between the successive bursts, and a
subset of de-bursted images around the landslide location
were extracted for further processing. The subsets of images
were used for the StaMPS export, in which files compatible
with StaMPS processing were generated. In Figure 2, a single
box represents sequential processing of the SAR images,
whereas multiple boxes represent parallel processing.
(10) The PS processing was performed in StaMPS and MATLAB
R2020a, including initially selecting sufficient measurement
points (MPs)—both PS and DS candidates (PSs are pixels with
stable phase or high coherence, DSs are pixels with nearly
 Figure 2. Methodological flowchart of the study.

Table 2. Input parameters used during StaMPS processing of the Pettimudi landslide.
Processing Step Parameter Value
Orbit state vector Sentinel Precise
Apply orbit file
Polynomial degree 3
S-1 TOPS co-registration DEM SRTM 1sec HGT
(back geo-coding) DEM resampling methodDelivered by Ingenta Bisinc 21-point interpolation
Registration window width × height
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Copyright: American
Coherence thresholdSociety forremoval
for outlier Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 0.3
ESD
ESD estimator Periodogram
Weight function Inverse quadratic
Degree of flat-earth polynomial 5
Interferogram generation Number of flat-earth estimation points 501
Orbit interpolation degree 3
DEM SRTM 1sec HGT
Maximum uncorrelated DEM error 20 m
CLAP filter grid cell size 50 m
CLAP filter window size 32
CLAP filter α 1
CLAP filter β 0.3
CLAP low-pass spatial wavelength 800 m
CLAP filter weighting scheme PS probability square
StaMPS processing PS selection method Density
(PS processing) Maximum acceptable spatial density of pixels with random phase 50 pixels/km2
Threshold standard deviation for pixel weeding 2
Weeding time window for estimating phase noise distribution 365 d
Unwrapping method Stepwise 3D
Unwrapping grid cell size for resampling 100 m
Unwrapping Gaussian width (α) 8σ
Unwrapping time window 365 d
Time window for spatially correlated filtering 180 d
Minimum wavelength for spatially correlated filtering 50 m
Satellite heading −167.98°
Displacement/velocity
Look direction −77.98°
computation
Mean incidence angle 36.62°
CLAP = combined low-pass and adaptive phase; DEM = digital elevation model; ESD = enhanced spectral diversity; S-1 TOPS = xxxx; SRTM
1sec HGT= Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 1-second “height” binary data file; StaMPS = Stanford Method for Persistent Scatterers.

858 Novem b er 2 0 21 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING

stable phase or moderate coherence throughout the data- The results were derived from StaMPS processing with the
acquisition period); dropping those measurement points (DS parameters shown in Table 2; stable MPs in terms of interfero-
candidates) that are not sufficiently stable and that contain metric phase and coherence were obtained. These MPs were
a signal contribution from adjacent pixels and are hence predominantly located in and around the landslide-affected
deemed too noisy (weeding), thus selecting relatively more area (Figure 3) and experienced measurable LOS displace-
stable pixels; and applying wrapped phase correction of se- ment throughout the measurement period. The time series of
lected pixels for spatially uncorrelated look angle to minimize LOS displacement, and hence the average LOS velocity, was
DEM error, higher-order (3D) phase unwrapping followed by measured at each MP location. A total of 182, 407, 962, 4089,
estimation of deformation and spatially correlated look angle and 7866 MPs were observed within radial distances of 200,
error or residual topography error or DEM error, and estima- 500, 1000, 2000, and 3000 m, respectively, from the central
tion and removal of atmospheric phase screen and orbital location of the landslide event in Pettimudi village. Figure 3
error. The input parameters required for the SAR preprocess- shows the distribution of average LOS velocity (mm/y) in and
ing steps and StaMPS processing are shown in Table 2. The around the landslide-affected area, with ranges between −40
time-series land surface movement (displacement) in the and +40 mm/y.
radar LOS was estimated after all unwanted phase components Numerous landslides occurred in the region on August
were removed, and it was finally visualized in RStudio and 6–7, 2020; the major ones (LS1, LS2, LS3, and LS4) are de-
the StaMPS visualizer. The radar LOS time-series displacement marcated in Figure 4, along with the resultant MPs generated
and velocity were projected into EW and up–down displace- by StaMPS processing. The corresponding field photographs
ment and velocity components using Equation 12. of the major landslide locations (LS1, LS2, LS3, and LS4) in
The entire processing chain was performed with two stand- the study area are shown in Figure 5. A total of 138 MPs were
alone personal computers, one running Microsoft Windows found in the landslide area (red boundary in Figure 4), over
10 Pro (16 GB RAM, 2 TB hard drive, 8-core Intel64 central which average LOS velocity and its decomposition along the
processing unit) and one running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux (8 EW and up–down directions were measured. The average LOS
GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Intel Core i7-4790 central processing velocity (Figure 4a) was classified into five classes depending
unit). SNAP 8.0, RStudio, and the StaMPS visualizer were in- upon the distribution, ranging from −18.76 to +11.88 mm/y.
stalled on the Windows computer, and MATLAB R2020a, StaMPS Positive and negative values of average LOS velocity represent
4.1beta, Triangle, and Snaphu were installed on the Linux movement toward and away from the satellite, respectively.
computer. Only MATLAB R2020a
required a software license; all other
software packages mentioned are
freely available on the web, and thus
this is a cost-effective approach to
deformation analysis as compared to
approaches using other commercial
software tools such as Gamma and
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Results and Discussion

In the first week of August 2020, the
major landslide event in Pettimudi
occurred due to heavy rainfall, which
was greatly influenced by terrain char-
acteristics, land cover/land use, and
streams. It occurred along major road
corridors with residential buildings
and public places. The vertical cut
and sharp turning were very suscep- Figure 3. Velocity measurement points in and around the Pettimudi landslide
tible to stability of earth and debris. location.

Figure 4. Mean velocity estimation (mm/y) at the Pettimudi landslide location in the Idukki district, Kerala, India: (a) mean
LOS velocity, (b) mean EW velocity, and (c) mean vertical up–down velocity. EW = east–west; LOS = line of sight.

PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING Nove m ber 2021 859

The spatial-distribution pattern and
classification of average LOS velocity
and its EW and vertical components
are shown in Figure 4a, 4b, and 4c, re-
spectively. The majority of the points
of the EW velocity component show
landslide movement toward the west
(negative EW velocity)—that is, from
high altitude to low altitude, which
supports the study. Similar results
for the vertical component of LOS
velocity show landslide movement
in the downward direction (negative
values). The time-series LOS displace-
ment was calculated simultaneously
for each MP in the study region. The
time series of LOS displacement at the
central location (time-series dot in
Figure 4 and LS2 image in Figure 5)
of the landslide in Pettimudi village
is shown in Figure 6. The trend line
of LOS displacement clearly depicts
the movement of the landslide away
from the satellite—that is, toward the
downpour in the study area at the Figure 5. Field photographs of landslide locations (locations LS1, LS2, LS3, and LS4
time of the landslide event. This type in Figure 4).
of time-series trend pattern can possi-
bly be used to assess critical landslide
situations in an area and establish an early-warning mecha-
nism, which could help with timely migration of the public
and necessary preparation for disaster management.
It is important to mention that the inclusive potential of
Sentinel-1 satellites has not been used here, because all the
SAR acquisitions in the study region come from the Sentinel-
Delivered by Ingenta
1A satellite, in descending passes only. However, it is quite
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feasible to continuously monitor ground deformation at a
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local scale from spaceborne SAR images along with carrying
out historical investigations. The accuracy of time-series mea-
surement can be further enhanced by increasing the temporal
resolution of SAR acquisition and combining processing of SAR
acquisitions in descending and ascending passes. Figure 6. Time-series LOS displacement at the Pettimudi
Pettimudi village lies in the southern WGR and is prone to landslide location (the red curve represents the trend). LOS
shallow landslides. The steep scarps in the study area consist = line of sight.
of frictional soil with marginal cohesion and remain more
stable in a dry environment, trailing their shear strength in include less opportunity to monitor north–south displace-
wet conditions (Mishra et al. 2018). The high intensity of ment, because the movement of the landslide occurred along
precipitation in the region contributes to rock weathering and the azimuth direction of the satellite; the requirement of a
increases the pore water pressure in the soils, resulting in fast large number of image scenes and more data-processing time;
declines in soil shear strength. The region also underwent and technical limitations such as the accessibility of required
rapid infrastructural development without lateral support, hardware and software and expertise in data interpretation.
and with increased migrated population from the midland
to the hilly estate, resulting in landslides due to substantial
changes in land use. Conclusion and Recommendation
The PSI technique facilitates and is in good agreement The devastating 2020 Pettimudi landslide was a unique event
with the Pettimudi landslide for mapping displacement and that took several human lives and damaged infrastructure and
velocity in long time series and understanding the instability properties. It is the responsibility of researchers and gov-
of terrain. More accurate results with a well-defined trend can ernment departments to come out with a suitable, efficient,
be obtained with a large number of SAR satellite images from and effective technique for monitoring landslide events to
ascending and descending passes and with high temporal diminish their harmful effects in the future. Freely available
resolution. Moreover, specific landslides with extraordinary spaceborne SAR data sets of Sentinel-1 sensors, and free and
vulnerability over smaller areas can be analyzed exclusively, open-source SAR processing software tools like ESA-SNAP,
StaMPS, and the StaMPS visualizer, along with the advanced
as the reduced size of the SAR image would significantly
PSI technique, eased our research. Traditional techniques of
reduce the PSI processing time. This research investigated
the landslide at Pettimudi village using PSI processing. The measuring land surface, such as terrestrial leveling, photo-
results were validated quantitatively using field pictures ob- grammetry, laser scanning, and microgravity, have been easily
tained from authentic sources, where the occurrence of land- replaced with contemporary SAR remote sensing techniques.
slides is suitably matched with MPs of high velocity compared These are comparable with traditional methods in terms of
to their surrounding pixels. A few limitations of the study accuracy in measuring surface displacement in the horizontal
and vertical directions, as well as having advantages such as

860 Novem b er 2 0 21 PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING

large area coverage, high frequency, and low cost of measure-
ment. This advancement of SAR technology has flagged a reli-
able path in measuring time-series surface displacement.
The present study focused on the methodological and
procedural concepts of time-series analysis to explore the ex-
terior factors that initiate the landslide process. The research
methodology adopted was applied to the Pettimudi landslide
of August 7, 2020, in the Idukki district of Kerala, India, and
delivered encouraging perceptions of the region’s surface
stability over a period of approximately 10 months, including
the period of the landslide disaster event.
The methodology applied can perhaps be used in regions
that are susceptible to rainfall-induced landslides, including
continuous monitoring over a long period to mitigate disas-
ter events. The major limitations of the proposed approach
include processing of a large number of SAR images, a demand
of high-performance computing hardware, and expert knowl-
edge to interpret the outputs. The StaMPS visualizer, along
with RStudio, helped as an efficient interface to display the
time-series results exported from the StaMPS MATLAB interface
as a .csv file. However, the same .csv files with time-series in-
formation can be analyzed separately either in QGIS with a PS
time-series viewer plugin or using any programming platform.
This study highly recommends time-series displacement
and velocity measurements over unstable land surfaces that
are highly susceptible to landslides. The analysis based on
the proposed PSI processing with freely available SAR remote
sensing images and open-source software capabilities is
highly economical, which is helpful in categorizing disaster-
management measures. This study focused on a single major
landslide over a smaller area. To minimize the computational
time for multiple landslides over a large area, it is recom-
mended to spatially divide the study region by landslide
event and process single bursts corresponding to each land-
slide area individually.
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Copyright: American Society for Photogrammetry
Acknowledgments
This research was not financially supported by any fund-
ing agency or project; it was carried out using an existing
computing facility of the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing,
Dehradun, India. The authors are very grateful to the
European Space Agency’s Copernicus Open Access Hub for
providing Sentinel-1A SAR images from 2019 to 2020 free of
cost. The DEM (SRTM 1sec HGT) used in this work was down-
loaded from the SRTM archive. We thank the editorial staff as
well the anonymous reviewers for their constructive com-
ments on the previous versions of this manuscript to improve
its readability and transparency.
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