Disaster Monitoring Using ALOS/PALSAR Data

抄録

Disaster monitoring is one of the most important objectives of the ALOS mission. Continual observation before a disaster and immediate observation after a disaster are important for determining the actual conditions in the target areas. ALOS/PALSAR is helpful for this purpose even in remote locations. PALSAR detected signals associated with various kinds of disasters, including landslides, floods, volcano eruptions, and earthquakes. Comparing amplitude images of before and after a disaster, we could find obvious changes on the ground surface caused by the disasters. Using the DInSAR technique, ALOS/PALSAR can detect ground deformations associated with a large earthquake over a wide area. Precise deformation information helps us to understand or interpret the mechanisms of a seismic fault. We tried to compare observed deformations to those induced from a fault model and found that the calculated deformation can explain the observed deformation well.