Contending with high relief and temporal decorrelation in an InSAR study of the effects of reservoir loading

Abstract

ERS-1 and 2 data are being used for differential interferometric SAR (dInSAR) to study the loading effect that the new Katse reservoir has on the Earth's crust. The anticipated results of this study are to be used to gain a better understanding of the rheological and structural nature of the Earth's crust in the Lesotho Highlands, and to improve our ability to assess the seismic risk involved in building large reservoirs in this region. The authors introduce the overall problem, presenting some of the geological background, and the practical purpose of this study. Some preliminary results are presented, and some potential limitations relating to long time scale InSAR and phase unwrapping in regions of high relief are discussed.