Long-term monitoring of surface deformation over Datun Volcanoes in Northern Taiwan

Abstract

Datun Volcano group is the largest volcano group in Taiwan. The existing monitoring over this area reveals that Datun Volcano group is active and is of potential to erupt in the future. As the volcanoes are very close to Taipei City and Yangmingshan National Park, it is critical to understand the behavior of the volcanoes. To this end, this paper aims to apply remote sensing method to monitor the surface deformation of the Datun Volcanoes. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is capable of penetrating cloud, and the most importantly, achieving sub-centimeter level deformation detection after interferometric processing, SAR data and associate processing techniques were proposed as the main method for deformation monitoring. In which a number of 14 ENVISAT ASAR archived images covering 2003 to 2008 were employed. Persistent Scatterers Interferometric SAR (PS-InSAR) technique was then performed to determine surface deformation over Datun Volcanoes. As a result, the amount of deformation of every PS-candidate point over the test area was revealed and shown in the paper.