20.09.23 - Measuring Earthquake Impact: SAR Imaging in Morocco

Optical satellite images are widely known and understood. Among other applications, they are used for damage assessment in emergency situations like wildfires (https://lnkd.in/emRz4fZA) or more recently after the earthquake in Morocco on 8 September.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images are another type of satellites images acquired night and day and through cloud coverage by active satellites. The phase of the measured backscattered signal can be used to evaluate the distance from the sensor to the surface. After the earthquake in Morocco, two radar images of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, taken on 30 August and on 11 September, were combined in an interferogram by the European Space Agency (ESA) to measure ground displacements.The phase of the interferogram is depicted in the illustration on the left and is convertible into distance measurement for ground displacement as in the illustration on the right. 

Such products can help to understand better the nature of the earthquake, the risk of future hazards and the effect of the earthquake on the land surface.

European Space Agency - ESA article : https://lnkd.in/efTXps2k

#remotesensing #earthobservation #earthquake #SAR