Basic Investigation of Displacement Monitoring of Dams Following Earthquakes Based on SAR Satellite Data

Abstract

This paper presents a basic investigation of the displacement monitoring of dams following earthquakes using data obtained from an SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite with the goal of quickly assessing the damage status. As an SAR satellite does not require ground-based measurement instruments, it can carry out displacement monitoring of an entire dam body surface and can acquire data without being affected by weather conditions. This means that SAR satellites can be relied upon to contribute to displacement monitoring of dams in the aftermath of earthquakes as well as during normal operations. In this paper, we conduct a basic study for the displacement monitoring of a dam following an earthquake using data from an SAR satellite, and we report the results of a basic investigation of the assessment of the damage status of a dam following the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.