Using corner reflectors for enhancing landslide and infrastructure monitoring in the UK

With the advances of ESA’s Sentinel-1 InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission there are freely available remote sensing ground deformation observations all over the globe that allows continuous monitoring of natural hazards and structural instabilities. The Digital Environment initiative in the UK aims to include these remote sensing data in the effort of forecasting and mitigating hazards across the UK.

However, analyses of low coherence areas (e.g. forested and vegetated areas) with conventional InSAR methodologies are difficult to perform due to the limiting factor of temporal and geometric decorrelation. Even the application of the permanent scatterer (PS) technique may not be successful when there is a low density of stable radar targets. Using artificial reflectors with high radar cross section (RCS) can be a way of overcome this limitation and achieve measurements with a good signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR).

In order to be able to include Sentinel-1 data in the UK’s Digital Environment it is important to understand the advantages and limitations of these observations and interpret them appropriately. The Hollin Hill landslide observatory in North Yorkshire is used by the British Geological Survey in their efforts to understand landslide processes, and to trial new technologies and methodologies for slope stability characterisation and monitoring.

We present InSAR results of the Hollin Hill landslide where a variety of ground-based geophysical measurements (e.g. GPS, Electric resistivity tomography, meteorological observations) are available for comparison with InSAR data. We use Sentinel-1 InSAR data acquired between Oct 2015 and Jan 2021 to study the behaviour of this landslide. We find that the Line of Sight component of the down-slope movement is 2.7 mm/yr in the descending track, and 7.5-7.7 mm/yr in the ascending track. The InSAR measurements also highlight the seasonal behaviour of this landslide.

In July 2019 six corner reflectors were installed to improve the coherence of the InSAR measurements, especially in the ascending acquisition mode. We present comparison with ground-based measurements such as the movement recorded by the GPS measurements of the pegs of the ERT survey or the moisture recorded by the various instruments at the site, and show the improvement introduced by the corner reflectors.

In addition we present results of an experiment that explores the use of smaller corner reflectors for potential urban applications of infrastructure monitoring. A single corner reflector needs to be at least ~67cm wide and tall to be seen by the Sentinel-1 satellites. We show that by placing 4 reflectors with 33cm dimensions in the same pixel coherent signal can be acquired. It is feasible to install small reflectors on bridges, tall buildings, or incorporate “corner-like” features in newly built structures,but care needs to be taken on the precise spacing of the reflectors to avoid destructive interference. Continuous monitoring of infrastructure with remote sensing and machine learning can alert to potential failures where further investigation is needed.