Application of DInSAR for monitoring slopes around a dam basin in Japan

Monitoring the behavior of slopes around the sites of hydroelectric power plants and dam reservoirs is important from the viewpoints of their stable operation and a reduction in the risk to the local community. Since their facilities are widely located at dam sites, however, it is not easy to efficiently monitor the behavior of them. SAR can be a solution to the problem. On the other hand, there are still difficulties that must be overcome when applying DInSAR as an engineering tool for monitoring in practice, i.e., phase decorrelation, the accuracy and reliability of the results, etc. In particular, the dense vegetation that often covers mountainous areas can prevent the acquisition of precise measurement results. In this paper, DInSAR using ALOS-2 data is applied around a dam basin and the results are compared with the actual ground behavior to confirm the applicability of DInSAR. It is concluded that DInSAR using ALOS-2 data could be a useful tool for monitoring the slope stability of large dam basins, even those covered with dense vegetation.