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Geodetic Observations for Earth System

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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Remote Sensing in Geology, Geomorphology and Hydrology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 30768

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. José Fernández

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Guest Editor

Instituto de Geociencias IGEO (CSIC-UCM), Madrid, Spain
Interests: geodesy; InSAR; GNSS; deformation modeling; natural and anthropogenic hazards
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Prof. Dr. José M. Ferrándiz

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Guest Editor

Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain
Interests: space geodesy; satellite dynamics; earth rotation theory and models; space sciences; Earth sciences; astrometry; numerical methods; celestial mechanics
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Prof. Dr. Juan F. Prieto

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Guest Editor

Departamento de Ingeniería Topográfica y Cartografía, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Interests: geodesy; InSAR; GNSS; deformation modeling; natural and anthropogenic hazards; engineering geodesy
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Dr. Joaquín Escayo Menéndez

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Assistant Guest Editor

Instituto de Geociencias (IGEO), CSIC-UCM, c/ Doctor Severo Ochoa, nº 7, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: InSAR processing and its application; data fusion of GNSS and InSAR
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, there has been a sharp rise in the quality and quantity of geodetic data from a variety of terrestrial, aerial, and spatial sources covering displacement and gravity. The development of space geodetic techniques has played a key role in this advance in geodesy and led to a boom in the spatial and temporal coverage and in the number of applications, while permitting the observation of terrestrial areas that are remote and hard to access using more classical ground-based methods. This has made it possible—for example—to detect deformations and variations in gravity associated with large earthquakes, or volcanoes that have not yet been studied systematically, and to monitor other natural or anthropogenic hazards. These include both those that progress slowly, such as droughts and subsidence caused by water extraction or subsoil exploitation, and those that occur suddenly, as is the case of tsunamis, which have inspired the design and deployment of complex early detection systems and warning systems. These advances have also been applied in other fields, particularly engineering, to allow more accurate measurement when executing and subsequently monitoring large-scale engineering projects, making it easier to keep track of deformations and detect pathologies in infrastructures and constructions. All these new capabilities highlight a clear need for new approaches to analysis, modeling, and interpretation. The quantitative combination of geodetic data with non-geodetic observations (e.g., seismicity, gas emissions, atmospheric measurements) using these new approaches is especially important. The abundant availability of data from a variety of sources also enables studies to be conducted on a very local scale (only a few hundred square meters), on a regional scale, and even on a global scale. This reinforces the importance of aspects such as the combination or merger of terrestrial, aerial, and spatial data; the materialization of the reference system with the progress of the global geodetic reference frame for sustainable development (which will include the international height frame, defined through the potential of the Earth gravity field); and the prediction and precise determination of the orbits of observation satellites, all of which depend closely on terrestrial reference frames and their orientation in space. This Special Issue will consider all these aspects.

Prof. Dr. José Fernández
Prof. Dr. José M. Ferrándiz
Prof. Dr. Juan F. Prieto
Mr. Joaquín Escayo
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Geodesy
Observation
Modeling
Remote sensing
Data integration and fusion
Natural and anthropogenic hazards
New sensors applied to geodetic techniques
Engineering geodesy and surveying

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 6555 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Processing Radargrams to Obtain Resistivity Sections

by Lucía Arévalo-Lomas, Bárbara Biosca, David Paredes-Palacios and Jesús Díaz-Curiel

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(11), 2639; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14112639 - 31 May 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1717

Abstract

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is routinely used to locate the isolated elements that produce reflection hyperbolas in radargrams. However, we propose a method in this study for locating the various interfaces appearing in a medium by studying the signal attenuation to obtain resistivity sections. GPR signal decay has a strong relationship with the electromagnetic properties of the medium, particularly the electrical resistivity and permittivity. To assign values of resistivity to different layers, a relationship between the attenuation coefficient and the above parameters must be used. Moreover, there are geometric effects that affect the energy loss and, therefore, the signal amplitude, that are jointly considered for the elimination of such effects before calculating the attenuation coefficient. An envelope function of the traces previously corrected for geometric effects was created to detect interfaces in the medium and generate a local decay curve and radargram zonation. Two relationships are necessary for obtaining the resistivity values from signal decay: first, a relationship between the resistivity and relative permittivity of the medium; and second, a relationship between the attenuation coefficient and resistivity. A resistivity section obtained from the GPR data is shown with an electrical tomography section at the same location. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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12 pages, 3321 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Global Mean Sea Level Variation on Interannual–Decadal Timescales: Climatic Connections

by Ting-Juan Liao and Benjamin F. Chao

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(9), 2159; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14092159 - 30 Apr 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2225

Abstract

The global mean sea level (GMSL) has been measured precisely by the space geodetic remote-sensing technique of radar altimetry since the 1990s. Aside from the well-studied seasonality and secular sea level rise, here we focus on GMSL variation on the interannual–decadal (ID) timescales (GMSL-ID) and investigate the influences of the climatic oscillations as physical causes. We conduct correlation analyses on the GMSL-ID time series with several climatic oscillations represented by their respective meteorological indices, including El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), and Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). From the time-domain cross-correlation functions and the corresponding frequency-domain cross-coherence spectra, we find the following: (i) high correlation between GMSL-ID and ENSO, primarily befalling on the Central-Pacific (as opposed to the Eastern-Pacific) type of ENSO, on timescales longer than 1.5 years; (ii) moderate correlations of GMSL-ID with PDO on long-period timescales of over 4 years, and with AMO on a timescale of 2–10 years, with AMO leading in phase by 8 months; (iii) weak or practically no correlation of GMSL-ID with either AO or AAO, in the former case given the fact that our GMSL-ID data actually do not cover the Arctic sea. Finally, we least-squares fit the above five indices to GMSL-ID to assess the relative contribution of each oscillation in causing the observed GMSL-ID, for a better understanding of the GMSL under the influences of on-going climate change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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17 pages, 10138 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Using InSAR Time Series to Monitor Surface Fractures and Fissures in the Al-Yutamah Valley, Western Arabia

by Thamer Aldaajani, Mark Simons, Zhang Yunjun, David Bekaert, Khalid A. Almalki and Yuan-Kai Liu

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(8), 1769; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14081769 - 7 Apr 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2719

Abstract

Western Arabia routinely experiences geophysical phenomena that deform the surface of the earth in a variety of ways. These phenomena include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, sinkholes, and earth fissuring and fracturing. We perform a time-series analysis of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations derived from the ESA Sentinel-1 radar satellite constellation to map regional surface displacements in western Arabia as a function of time. We rely on InSAR products generated by the JPL-Caltech ARIA project to detect regions with short wavelength anomalies, and then manually reprocess InSAR products at a higher resolution for these regions to maximize spatial and temporal coverage. We post-process InSAR products using MintPy workflows to develop the InSAR time series. We report short wavelength anomalies localized within alluvial valleys across western Arabia and find a 5 cm/year line-of-sight surface displacement within the Al-Yutamah Valley. Part of the observed subsidence is correlated with surface fractures that developed in conjunction with severe rainfall events in regions characterized mainly by alluvial sediments at the surface. Regions of observed subsidence that are not associated with any surface fractures or fissures are correlated with the presence of basalt layers at the surface. Both regions are subject to groundwater exploitation. The observed subsidence is inferred to be driven by groundwater withdrawal perhaps modulated by the presence of a preexisting depositional environment (e.g., paleo-lake deposits) that promotes unconsolidated soil compaction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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14 pages, 5837 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The August 2019 Piton de la Fournaise (La Réunion Island) Eruption: Analysis of the Multi-Source Deformation Pattern Detected through Sentinel-1 DInSAR Measurements

by Emanuela Valerio, Claudio De Luca, Riccardo Lanari, Mariarosaria Manzo and Maurizio Battaglia

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(7), 1762; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14071762 - 6 Apr 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1798

Abstract

Piton de la Fournaise is one of the most active worldwide volcanoes, located on the southeastern part of La Réunion Island. In this work, we focus on the eruption that occurred on the southeastern flank of this volcano, inside the Enclos Fouqué caldera, from 11 to 15 August 2019. This distal event was characterized by the opening of two eruptive fissures and accompanied by shallow volcano–tectonic earthquakes. We exploit the ground displacements using Sentinel-1 Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) measurements, which include the ground deformations generated during both the pre- and co-eruptive phases. To investigate the sources responsible for the detected ground displacements, we perform an analytical modeling of the retrieved DInSAR measurements. Our results reveal the presence of five volcanic sources (i.e., one sill-like source and four dikes), whose concomitant action during the pre- and co-eruptive phases generated the complex detected deformation pattern. The retrieved volcanic sources correlate well with the location of the opened fissures, the spatial distribution and the temporal evolution of the recorded seismicity, and other geophysical evidence already known in the literature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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19 pages, 7945 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Missing Data Imputation in GNSS Monitoring Time Series Using Temporal and Spatial Hankel Matrix Factorization

by Hanlin Liu and Linchao Li

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(6), 1500; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14061500 - 20 Mar 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2255

Abstract

GNSS time series for static reference stations record the deformation of monitored targets. However, missing data are very common in GNSS monitoring time series because of receiver crashes, power failures, etc. In this paper, we propose a Temporal and Spatial Hankel Matrix Factorization (TSHMF) method that can simultaneously consider the temporal correlation of a single time series and the spatial correlation among different stations. Moreover, the method is verified using real-world regional 10-year period monitoring GNSS coordinate time series. The Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE) are calculated to compare the performance of TSHMF with benchmark methods, which include the time-mean, station-mean, K-nearest neighbor, and singular value decomposition methods. The results show that the TSHMF method can reduce the MAE range from 32.03% to 12.98% and the RMSE range from 21.58% to 10.36%, proving the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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15 pages, 4052 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Strain-Rates from GPS Measurements in the Ordos Block, China: Implications for Geodynamics and Seismic Hazards

by Shoubiao Zhu

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(3), 779; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14030779 - 7 Feb 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1987

Abstract

A number of devastating earthquakes have occurred around the Ordos Block in recent history. For the purpose of studying where the next major event will occur surrounding the Ordos Block, much work has been done, particularly in the investigation of the Earth’s surface strain rates based on GPS measurements. However, there exist striking differences between the results from different authors although they used almost the same GPS data. Therefore, we validated the method for the calculation of GPS strain rates developed by Zhu et al. (2005, 2006) and found that the method is feasible and has high precision. With this approach and the updated GPS data, we calculated the strain rates in the region around the Ordos Block. The computed results show that the total strain rates in the interior of the Block are very small, and the high values are mainly concentrated on the peripheral zones of the Ordos Block and along the large-scale active faults, such as the Haiyuan fault, which are closely aligned to the results by geological and geophysical observations. Additionally, the strain rate results demonstrated that all rifted grabens on the margin of the Ordos Block exhibit extensional deformation. Finally, based on the strain rate, seismicity, and tectonic structures, we present some areas of high earthquake risk surrounding the Ordos Block in the future, which are located on the westernmost of the Weihe Graben, both the east and westernmost of the Hetao Graben, and in the middle of the Shanxi Graben. Hence, this work is significant in contributing to a better understanding of the geodynamics and seismic hazard assessment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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16 pages, 36277 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Earthquake Source Investigation of the Kanallaki, March 2020 Sequence (North-Western Greece) Based on Seismic and Geodetic Data

by Nikos Svigkas, Anastasia Kiratzi, Andrea Antonioli, Simone Atzori, Cristiano Tolomei, Stefano Salvi, Marco Polcari and Christian Bignami

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(9), 1752; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13091752 - 30 Apr 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2102

Abstract

The active collision of the Apulian continental lithosphere with the Eurasian plate characterizes the tectonics of the Epirus region in northwestern Greece, invoking crustal shortening. Epirus has not experienced any strong earthquakes during the instrumental era and thus there is no detailed knowledge of the way the active deformation is being expressed. In March 2020, a moderate size (Mw 5.8) earthquake sequence occurred close to the Kanallaki village in Epirus. The mainshock and major aftershock focal mechanisms are compatible with reverse faulting, on NNW-ESE trending nodal planes. We measure the coseismic surface deformation using radar interferometry and investigate the possible fault geometries based on seismic waveforms and InSAR data. Slip distribution models provide good fits to both nodal planes and cannot resolve the fault plane ambiguity. The results indicate two slip episodes for a 337° N plane dipping 37° to the east and a single slip patch for a 137° N plane dipping 43° to 55° to the west. Even though the area of the sequence is very close to the triple junction of western Greece, the Kanallaki 2020 activity itself seems to be distinct from it, in terms of the acting stresses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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18 pages, 10262 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Crustal Strain and Stress Fields in Egypt from Geodetic and Seismological Data

by Mohamed Rashwan, Rashad Sawires, Ali M. Radwan, Federica Sparacino, José Antonio Peláez and Mimmo Palano

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(7), 1398; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13071398 - 5 Apr 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3429

Abstract

The comparison between crustal stress and surface strain azimuthal patterns has provided new insights into several complex tectonic settings worldwide. Here, we performed such a comparison for Egypt taking into account updated datasets of seismological and geodetic observations. In north-eastern Egypt, the stress field shows a fan-shaped azimuthal pattern with a WNW–ESE orientation on the Cairo region, which progressively rotated to NW–SE along the Gulf of Aqaba. The stress field shows a prevailing normal faulting regime, however, along the Sinai/Arabia plate boundary it coexists with a strike–slip faulting one (σ₁ ≅ σ₂ > σ₃), while on the Gulf of Suez, it is characterized by crustal extension occurring on near-orthogonal directions (σ₁ > σ₂ ≅ σ₃). On the Nile Delta, the maximum horizontal stress (S_Hmax) pattern shows scattered orientations, while on the Aswan region, it has a WNW–ESE strike with pure strike–slip features. The strain-rate field shows the largest values along the Red Sea and the Sinai/Arabia plate boundary. Crustal stretching (up to 40 nanostrain/yr) occurs on these areas with WSW–ENE and NE–SW orientations, while crustal contraction occurs on northern Nile Delta (10 nanostrain/yr) and offshore (~35 nanostrain/yr) with E–W and N–S orientations, respectively. The comparison between stress and strain orientations over the investigated area reveals that both patterns are near-parallel and driven by the same large-scale tectonic processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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24 pages, 8158 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Underground Coal Fire Detection and Monitoring Based on Landsat-8 and Sentinel-1 Data Sets in Miquan Fire Area, XinJiang

by Jinglong Liu, Yunjia Wang, Shiyong Yan, Feng Zhao, Yi Li, Libo Dang, Xixi Liu, Yaqin Shao and Bin Peng

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(6), 1141; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13061141 - 17 Mar 2021

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3667

Abstract

Underground coal fires have become a worldwide disaster, which brings serious environmental pollution and massive energy waste. Xinjiang is one of the regions that is seriously affected by the underground coal fires. After years of extinguishing, the underground coal fire areas in Xinjiang have not been significantly reduced yet. To extinguish underground coal fires, it is critical to identify and monitor them. Recently, remote sensing technologies have been showing great potential in coal fires’ identification and monitoring. The thermal infrared technology is usually used to detect thermal anomalies in coal fire areas, and the Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) technology for the detection of coal fires related to ground subsidence. However, non-coal fire thermal anomalies caused by ground objects with low specific heat capacity, and surface subsidence caused by mining and crustal activities have seriously affected the detection accuracy of coal fire areas. To improve coal fires’ detection accuracy by using remote sensing technologies, this study firstly obtains temperature, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and subsidence information based on Landsat8 and Sentinel-1 data, respectively. Then, a multi-source information strength and weakness constraint method (SWCM) is proposed for coal fire identification and analysis. The results show that the proposed SWCM has the highest coal fire identification accuracy among the employed methods. Moreover, it can significantly reduce the commission and omission error caused by non-coal fire-related thermal anomalies and subsidence. Specifically, the commission error is reduced by 70.4% on average, and the omission error is reduced by 30.6%. Based on the results, the spatio-temporal change characteristics of the coal fire areas have been obtained. In addition, it is found that there is a significant negative correlation between the time-series temperature and the subsidence rate of the coal fire areas (R² reaches 0.82), which indicates the feasibility of using both temperature and subsidence to identify and monitor underground coal fires. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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Review

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38 pages, 10346 KiB

Open AccessReview

Advancements of Geodetic Activities in Nepal: A Review on Pre- and Post-2015 Gorkha Earthquake Eras with Future Directions

by Shanker KC and Tri Dev Acharya

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(7), 1586; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14071586 - 25 Mar 2022

Viewed by 7086

Abstract

From celestial objects to every feature on Earth, geodesy provides a reference frame and is the foundation for surveying, mapping, and other geoscience activities. In Nepal, geodesy was officially introduced after 1924 to prepare the topographic map series. Although the previous geodetic project occurred with foreign assistance, Nepal is using national resources to conduct milestone projects such as the re-measurement of Mount Everest height in 2020 and the ongoing LiDAR survey of western Terai. Taking the 2015 Gorkha earthquake as a reference, this paper reviews the past and present geodetic activities in Nepal. It presents the history of conventional Nepal datum as a horizontal datum and Indian mean sea level-based vertical datum, and modern satellite geodesy works on the Himalayas. Considering recent earthquakes, continuous crustal motion, international and global compliance, and increasing demand for precise positional accuracy from the users and stakeholders, this paper discusses future directions to build, establish, maintain, and operate modern terrestrial, height, and gravity reference systems and frames. This paper consolidates many reports and experiences from Nepal and will serve as useful documentation for newcomers whose interests align in geodesy and Nepal. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geodetic Observations for Earth System)

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