From Satellites to Safety: An Open-Source SBAS Workflow for Ground Deformation Monitoring

Ground deformation monitoring is critical for safety and environmental management in modern mining. Active mining sites are highly exposed to terrain instabilities and subsidence, risking infrastructure integrity, disrupting operations, and posing hazards to communities. In this context, Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) techniques provide an effective and non-invasive tool capable of detecting millimetric surface displacements. This study implements the Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) technique through an open-source workflow based on the Python package hyp3_sbas, enabling semi-automated and reproducible interferometric processing by combining HyP3 with MintPy. The workflow is applied to the Björkdal gold mine (Sweden), a pilot site of the Horizon Europe XTRACT project focused on enhancing resilience in critical raw material supply chains. Integrating Sentinel-1 viewing geometries resolves the true vertical deformation field, yielding an overall mean velocity of −3.99 mm/year across the mining complex, with significant displacement rates concentrated below the 25th percentile (Q1) at −11.07 mm/year. Sector-specific analysis reveals localised subsidence accelerating over underground footprints and tailings storage facilities (mean velocities of −6.56 and −3.98 mm/year; Q1 thresholds near −13.00 mm/year), contrasting with the geomechanical stability observed at the open-pit area (mean: −0.45 mm/year). The proposed open-source framework shows strong potential for operational satellite-based monitoring, supporting predictive maintenance and early-warning strategies for risk management in mining environments while simplifying and standardising the interferometric processing workflow.