Application of persistent scatterers interferometry time-series analysis (PS-time) to enhance the radar interpretation of landslide movements

In the last few years, the success of Persistent Scatterers Interferometry (PSI) techniques has largely increased because of the ever enhanced availability of space born radar data. Recently, various authors worked about using PSI techniques in order to better understand slope movements in general and in particular landslides kinematic. PS-time approach represents a new method for the automatic classification of PSI time series based on a conditional sequence of statistical tests. Time series are classified into distinctive predefined target trends, such as uncorrelated, linear, quadratic, bilinear and discontinuous, that describe different styles of ground deformations, so this new approach can be successfully used to improve the radar interpretation of land-slide movements. In this paper we present the results of the application of PS-time to two unstable areas in Northern Apennines of Italy (San Benedetto Val di Sambro, Province of Bologna; Vairo, Province of Parma). Results show that the time series analysis can greatly improve our understanding of the deformation phenomena, and pro-vide useful information in addition to the conventional analysis based on the mean velocity alone.