During the last two decades, results obtained by processing multi-temporal SAR data acquired by different satellite sensors have shown their potential for different applications. Radar interferometry (InSAR) has proven to be effective in measuring surface deformation phenomena, with precision up to 1 mm, while change detection algorithms applied to multi- temporal SAR data have shown how simple and effective can be their use in many different projects. Based on our experience, we can highlight some key points for a wide acceptance of multi-temporal SAR data, namely: (1) regular acquisition of radar data over large areas using the same acquisition geometry; (2) use of advanced processing algorithms based on more than two images; (3) access to significant processing power. In this speech, we will focus on oil&gas applications and will show how all these constraints have been overcome thanks to the recent advances in SAR data processing, the advent of cloud computing and the launch of new satellite platforms, specifically designed for InSAR analysis.

Learn more about the advantages of radar image acquisition in a unique constellation: TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X & PAZ. Near real-time, highly accurate and reliable Earth observation – independent of weather and daylight conditions. The presentation presents quantitative and qualitative analytics techniques applied on high resolution SAR data. Featured applications include monitoring of surface movement, automatic object detection and derivation of precise ground control points.

Movement of the earth's surface can cause damage and can be an independent measure for subsurface management. The remote sensing community knows well that SAR data are able to yield surface motions with high precision. SAR data can provide very valuable information for companies and public administrations. However, do they realize that? Moreover, if they realize it in principle, can they correctly assess the opportunities and limitations in their specific applications? At the time being, are there huge numbers of tailor-made tenders for SAR-applications in the day-to-day business of companies and public administrations expectable? In the framework of the SAR based German Ground Motion Service (BBD) methodological competence to exploit SAR-data information is spread to experienced geoscientists, mining engineers and land surveyors of state public bodies to scrutinize Sentinel-1 SAR results. Capacities to apply SAR data are also build through applications in German partner countries.

The ground deformation services by TRIGIS GeoServices GmbH offer precise ground motion time series information with an accuracy of 1-2 millimetre per year. The technique of radar interferome-try (InSAR) allows the analysis of the spatial distribution of ground deformations on various scales from a country wide monitoring with medium resolution data up to a focused monitoring of single buildings/infrastructure using high resolution data. Due to the availability of archived radar imagery, a retrospective deformation analysis can be carried out from 1992 onwards. For ongoing monitoring services, TRIGIS uses all available sensor platforms, depending on the specific requirements and issues of each project. The Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) for the point-wise monitoring and the Small Baseline Interferometry (SBAS) for an area-wide analysis are both combined to de-liver state of the art services for clients in the energy sector, administrations and engineering companies.

The presentation will give an overview of projects in which the InSAR-services were a source of crucial information for the understanding of deformation processes.

The Brumadinho mine complex, located south west of Belo Horizonte, Brasil, has become sadly popular for the dramatic disaster of a tailing dam collapse, Córrego do Feijão, that occurred on 25 January 2019. The dam collapse caused a catastrophic mud flood, involving 12 million cubic meters of released mud and causing more than 200 confirmed deaths. This work aims to shed new lights on possible precursory deformations affecting the tailing dam. Space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Sentinel-1 and COSMO-SkyMed acquisitions have been analyzed through multi-temporal differential interferometric techniques, the Small-Baseline Subset (SBAS). The great potential of these remote sensing techniques is due to the availability of large data archives and the capability to retrieve displacement with millimeter accuracy. Analyses of results could demonstrate the importance of these techniques on mining monitoring practices. Moreover, this case can help illustrating the potential and limitations of this technique, highlighting the prerogative of several SAR sensors working with different wavelengths and resolutions and discussing the applicability to other contexts.

Radar satellite interferometry (InSAR) is a non-invasive surveying technique based on the exploitation of SAR images, able to measure millimetric motion of terrain structures over wide areas in both urban and non-urban environments. Sixense processing chain, ATLAS, has been successfully used to detect and monitor ground motion in many different projects, cities and sectors to follow subsidence, heave, building stability and landslides amongst others. ATLAS reaches high density of measurement points, and covers large areas with high-resolution imagery, and weekly revisits. This presents a huge opportunity for the monitoring and management of infrastructures. However, the unprecedent spatial and temporal volume of InSAR measurements- which are only going to increase with new sensors to come- presents a challenge. Thus, ATLAS is in continuous development to efficiently extract characterized information of maximum benefit to end users by implementing different algorithms and AI methodologies over InSAR Big Data results to provide ready-to-use, actionable information. Different application cases of the ATLAS monitoring in different scenarios will be presented in the field of civil engineering: from ATLAS extended areas results to a local asset focused solution to provide ready-to-use friendly-user information in the ATLAS GIS web platform.

Safeguarding cultural heritage has become a central topic both in National and European strategies; in particular, in consideration of the high number of Italian cultural properties and their distribution on the territory (for instance, there are 54 UNESCO sites, equal to the 5% of the worldwide heritage and 11% of the European heritage), a systemic and capillary approach has been considered necessary by some Italian cultural property managers to support activities of conservation, preservation and use. In addition to the huge number of cultural sites, Italy has to face threats related to both natural and anthropic activities, potentially having significant impact on ancient/historic properties, already fragile due to their intrinsic delicate nature. To meet properties managers’ needs, a commercial initiative, St’ART, offers solutions for the monitoring of cultural properties by using non-destructive approaches derived from the use of data coming from satellites (SAR, multispectral), UAV systems and on-site sensors (according to the type of analysis requested), results of which are simplified and made easily readable and available to users on a web platform, provided with a GIS tool for the visualisation of geo-spatial information. In order to map and monitor natural threats that could cause the partial or the total loss of the cultural properties, SAR applications performed in St’ART were experimented over different cultural assets (going from archaeological sites to historic centres). Each one of the monitored sites (Civita di Bagnoregio, Baia, Villa Adriana) are affected by different natural hazards such as, respectively, landslides, bradyseism and subsidence. Monitoring services were set up in order to monitor, for a period spanning from 2013 to 2018 the above-mentioned terrain movements.

Open-source researchers in the WMD nonproliferation field consistently use optical imagery to analyze sites of interest. We have the ability to monitor site construction and development, identify changes and levels of activity, explore site history, and confirm the location of relevant ground imagery. However, optical imagery has limitations – cloud cover or infrequent collection can mean loss of data for significant periods of time. Radar-based data circumvents these obstacles and can help fill in the gaps in optical imagery.

If optical imagery is considered the default option for imagery analysis, SAR data is sometimes erroneously relegated to the category of an “added bonus” or an “extra” – if its acquisition is not possible for one reason or another, it is often not considered to be a significant information loss. Instead, regular use of SAR data should be considered a failsafe, catch-all imagery solution that is critical to continuously and thoroughly monitor covert proliferation activities because it defies the conventional limits of optical imagery. Beyond this, SAR can also characterize minute levels of change and portray these in a quantifiable, deliverable fashion.L

This presentation will use two case studies that illustrate the benefits of SAR imagery utilization in open-source nonproliferation research. The first case study overviews the use of SAR on the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea. Interferometric SAR was particularly useful in detecting subsidence in the mountain after its latest and largest nuclear test in September 2017. In this case, InSAR augmented other sources of open-source information, like seismic data and state media reports, to confirm nuclear testing, and provided compelling evidence that cued further investigation and analysis into the site: a methodological example clearly transferable to future work.

The second case study will use SAR imagery to analyze the Al Kibar nuclear reactor site near Deir Alzour in the Syrian Arab Republic, and demonstrate that the insights derived from traditional optical satellite imagery analysis can be augmented with SAR. Initial implementation SAR into open-source analysis of the site could have helped prevent the rapid spread of misinformation in the aftermath of its bombing, and more concrete evidence of covert activity could have been elucidated and highlighted in the open-source, which in turn could have been useful to those in leadership and decision-making capacities.

With the trend in coastal urbanisation and the foreseen growth in aquaculture required to sustain an increasing population, new opportunities for applying Earth Observation in the maritime area are emerging. SAR system development trends are moving towards increased maritime use with specific ocean surveillance modes and on-board AIS, yet the acquisition strategies have not progressed sufficiently to address the user communities’ needs. In order to meet the future analysis requirements of open-ocean industries, the current land-based focus of SAR system design must be challenged. Evidence for the impact of the current observation scenarios is drawn from three recent SCISYS projects in the maritime area: - Characterisation of the behaviour of maritime traffic which allows an understanding of congested routes and the behaviours of different classes of vessels within a region. - Detection of IUU fishing in British Overseas Territories to protect MPAs and the economic interests of the OTs. - An investigation into EO based services for aquaculture. Addressing topics such as the lack of open-ocean coverage, polarisation, the trade-off between coverage and resolution, and the collection frequency, this presentation identifies the gaps that need to be addressed in order to maximise the utility and scalability of SAR maritime analytics.

In the offshore context, natural hydrocarbon leakages move and rise through the water column, then are deposited on the sea surface. Those slicks with a low roughness can be detected by SAR satellite imagery.

In the present use case, GEOESPACE used a multi-temporal approach enhanced by the sentinel-1 data and Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Services products and correlated the results with geological data.

To provide the best possible service GEOESPACE has developed his own algorithms to:

• Create the right data set in this ocean of data
• Highlight and minimize impact of lookalikes: pollution, atmospheric, oceanic, biological artefacts or disturbances

This service will be illustrated thanks to a practical example in Mediterranean Sea which will highlight two potential areas of natural hydrocarbon leakages.

The world is permanently changing. Many changes are the result of human activities and impact our daily lives. It gets more and more important to understand and monitor these changes and earth observation systems can help to monitor many of these. Change information is important to many different groups: governments and governmental authorities, NGOs, environmental organisations, different industries and organisations.

In the past years remote sensing has been playing a growing role in order to support business intelligence analysis. The weather and daytime independent SAR sensors provide the capability to monitor sites continuously and reliably. Furthermore, new SAR sensors provide data of up to 0,5 m resolution which allows an easier visual interpretation of the imagery.

This presentation will give an overview of SAR-based change detection information for business intelligence applications. Technologies like bi-temporal and multi-temporal monitoring will be presented.

The use of SAR data integrated with surface and subsurface data allows the monitoring of areas affected by landslides as well as areas affected by sinking and subsidence (sinkhole) phenomena. The use of instruments with active sensors (eg: radars), allows to identify the movements of the ground that allow to determine the phenomena of hydrogeological instability. The use of satellite radar data as an operational tool for the identification and characterization of landslides, allows the development of activities aimed at decreasing the impact of landslides on the population and on the territory. The satellite radar data allow to identify also localized mass movements not strictly connected to rainfall events. Therefore their use allows the development of a satellite monitoring system that uses remote-sensed radar and optical data, for the identification, mapping and interpretation of mass movements located in areas with high hydrogeological risk. The Geological Department of ARPA Sardegna is applying this experimental model in the pilot area of the Riu Mannu Hydrographic Basin of Sassari. The area was chosen because it is considered representative for the availability and quality of the available data that allow the optimal application of the Interferometric methodology on different situations and consequently its replicability in different areas of the region.

Floods are the most frequent weather disasters in the world and the costliest in terms of economic losses. Mapping flood extension in near real-time is fundamental to ascertain the damage and to provide critical information for evidence-based decision making by relief organizations and re-insurers. A myriad of activities have been implemented at global, regional and local level to mitigate the impact of the increasing frequency and intensity of floods. The implementation of an effective Disaster Risk Management plan and, in particular, the rapid response by the risk financing industry in the wake of a natural disaster requires a good situational awareness and precise and up-to-date mapping affected areas.

Spaceborne SARs represent an effective quasi-continuous data source for monitoring floods because of their all-weather capability, the very high spatial resolution and the short revisit time of present satellite constellations. Moreover, a new generation of SAR satellite missions provides an unprecedented possibility to develop automatic algorithms enabling the detection of floodwater in urban areas. These recent advances pave the way for an improved monitoring of flood risk. Here, near real time SAR-based services enabling the delivery of essential information for evaluating the status of flood preparedness and rapidly assessing losses are presented.

Transforming SAR data into information is a hard job in itself but translating that information into knowledge is even more challenging. And yet that is still just the beginning of the process of delivering a SAR analytics as a service. Serving a group of end-users with SAR Services often requires the use of a set of technologies that are not a core component to SAR Analytics. cloudeo has developed solutions to help you to streamline the process of transforming SAR Analytics into services that can be accessed by a wider audience or can enable end-users to consume SAR services at affordable cost. This presentation will present an example of such a process from analytics to service.

Open geospatial data has propelled us into a new era for innovative geospatial applications and algorithms in a global effort to answer societies most important questions, improve business efficiency and discover new market opportunities. This era calls forth the development of data-intensive platforms for the efficient and effective extraction of information in an environment that harbors the intersectional use of data. The UP42 platform expedites the transformation of data into insights faster than ever before by leveraging state of the art technologies like cloud computing, containerization and deep learning. In this presentation, we will elucidate practical examples of how large amounts of SAR imagery can be processed in parallel on the UP42 platform. One example will showcase rapid processing of hundreds of Sentinel-1 images and processing capabilities of ESA's SNAP toolbox . We will also outline how pairing this data with other datasets on our platform can help build actionable insights ready for market consumption.

ONDA is the EU funded DIAS (Data and Information Access Service) led by Serco Italia that brings together data and information close to processing facilities in a cloud-based environment. The platform provides a new way to process massive amount of data from different sources and to apply analytics that lead to the development of tailored EO value added products.

The whole archive of Sentinel-1 products as well as ENVISAT ASAR are available. Complemented by optical datasets, ONDA gives free access to multi petabyte of data worldwide. VHR SAR and optical data are also commercially available to offer a larger range of spatial and spectral resolution. Today the platform has more than 1000 registered users and is close to support more than 100 applications, from Research and Development to commercial services. CNR IREA is one of these users.

The application presented by CNR IREA studies the temporal evolution of ground deformation over large portion of the Earth surface. DInSAR analysis is performed at continental scale to monitor surface deformation and estimate the corresponding deformation velocity. 72000 S1 products (IWS) for an area of more than 4.5 million sqkm are analysed, demonstrating the suitability of ONDA for big data application.