Analyzing surface deformation throughout China's territory using multi-temporal InSAR processing of Sentinel-1 radar data

The damage caused by surface deformation is substantial and far-reaching. Although multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology is commonly used to monitor surface deformation, it remains challenging to rapidly extract surface deformation on a national scale, especially in China, which has an area of approximately 9.6 million km2. We designed a set of robust parallel computing solutions for rapid acquisition of surface deformations throughout China. The 46,904 Sentinel-1 data covering the entire territory of China from 2018 to 2022 were processed, and a surface deformation dataset throughout China (SDDC) for this period was obtained for the first time. We used external GNSS data to evaluate the accurcy. The SDDC provided abundant deformation information that can play an important role in updating the list of geological disasters, assisting in decision-making in urban construction, and strengthening understanding of potential mechanisms. We analyzed a range of applications of this data, including the deformation of urban areas caused by the overexploitation of groundwater, facility construction, and reclamation, melting deformation of frozen soil, as well as landslide, mining, karst surface, earthquake, and reservoir dam deformation, and deformation of major transport infrastructure throughout China. Our work presents a reference for the rapid extraction of surface deformation at the national scale and provides valuable data support for scientific research and engineering applications in many fields.