Abstract
High-resolution maps of earth surface deformation are available in public archives for scientific interpretation, but are primarily available as bulky downloads on the internet. The NASA uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar (UAVSAR) archive of airborne radar interferograms delivers very high resolution images (approximately seven meter pixels) making remote handling of the files that much more pressing. Data exploration requiring data selection and exploratory analysis has been tedious. QuakeSim has implemented an archive of UAVSAR data in a web service and browser system based on GeoServer (http://geoserver.org). This supports a variety of services that supply consistent maps, raster image data and geographic information systems (GIS) objects including standard earthquake faults. Browsing the database is supported by initially displaying GIS-referenced thumbnail images of the radar displacement maps. Access is also provided to image metadata and links for full file downloads. One of the most widely used features is the QuakeSim line-of-sight profile tool, which calculates the radar-observed displacement (from an unwrapped interferogram product) along a line specified through a web browser. Displacement values along a profile are updated to a plot on the screen as the user interactively redefines the endpoints of the line and the sampling density. The profile and also a plot of the ground height are available as CSV (text) files for further examination, without any need to download the full radar file. Additional tools allow the user to select a polygon overlapping the radar displacement image, specify a downsampling rate and extract a modest sized grid of observations for display or for inversion, for example, the QuakeSim simplex inversion tool which estimates a consistent fault geometry and slip model.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
de Macido, KAC., Scheiber, R., Moreira, A., “An Autofocus Approach for Residual Motion Errors With Application to Airborne Repeat-Pass SAR Interferometry,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 46, p 3151–3162, October 2008, doi:10.1109/TGRS.2008.924004.
Delbridge, B. G., Burgmann, R., Fielding, E. J., Hensley, S., Schulz, W. H., “The Slumgullion Natural Laboratory: Landslide-wide kinematics revealed by combining satellite and airborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar with continuous GPS observations,” AGU Fall Meeting abstr IN13C-1510 (2012).
Deoliveira, Justin. “GeoServer: uniting the GeoWeb and spatial data infrastructures.” In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference for Spatial Data Infrastructure, St. Augustine, Trinidad. 2008.
Donnellan, A.; Parker, J.; Granat, R.; De Jong, E.; Suzuki, S.; Pierce, M.; Fox, G.; Rundle, J.; McLeod, D.; Al-Ghanmi, R.; Ludwig, L.G., “QuakeSim: Integrated modeling and analysis of geologic and remotely sensed data,” Aerospace Conference, 2012 IEEE, pp.1,9, 3–10 March 2012. doi:10.1109/AERO.2012.6187219, 2012a.
Donnellan A, Parker JW, Glasscoe MT, De Jong E, Pierce M, Fox GC, McLeod D, Rundle JB, Grant Ludwig L. A Distributed Approach to Computational Earthquake Science: Opportunities and Challenges. Computing in Science and Engineering. vol.14, no.5, pp. 31–42, doi:10.1109/MCSE.2012.59, 2012b.
Glasscoe, M. T., Blom, R. G., Bawden, G. W., Fox, G., Pierce, M., Rundle, J. B., Wang, J., Ma, Y, Yoder, M. R., Sachs, M. K., Parker, J. W., “E-DECIDER: Earthquake Disaster Decision Support and Response Tools—Development and Experiences”, AGU Fall Meeting, abstr. IN11A-1269, (2011).
Hensley, S., Wheeler, K., Sadowy, G., Miller, T., Shaffer, S., Muellershoen, R., Jones, C., Zebker, H., Madsen, S., and Rosen, P., “Status of a AUAVSAR Designed for Repeat Pass Interferometry for Deformation Measurements,” Microwave Symposium Digest, 2005 IEEE MTT-S International, 12–17 June 2005, doi:10.1109/MWSYM.2005.1516963.
Hensley, S.; Zebker, H.; Jones, C.; Michel, T.; Muellerschoen, R.; Chapman, B., “First deformation results using the NASA/JPL UAVSAR instrument,” Synthetic Aperture Radar, 2009. APSAR 2009. 2nd Asian-Pacific Conference on, pp. 1051, 1055, 26–30 Oct. 2009. doi:10.1109/APSAR.2009.5374246.
Jones, C., Bawden, G., Deverel, S., Dudas, J., Hensley, S., “Characterizing land surface change and levee stability in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta using UAVSAR radar imagery,” Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2011 IEEE International, 24–29 July 2011, doi:10.1109/IGARSS.2011.6049546.
Rosen, PA, Hensley, S., Wheeler, K, Sadowy, G, Miller, T, Shaffer, S, Muellershoen, R, Jones, C., Zebker, H, Madsen, S, UAVSAR: A New NASA Airborne SAR System for Science and Technology Research, Radar, 2006 IEEE Conference on, vol., no., pp.8 pp. 24–27 April 2006. doi:10.1109/RADAR.2006.1631770.
Wang J, Pierce M, Ma YM, Fox GC, Donnellan A, Parker JW, Glasscoe MT. Using Service-Based Geographical Information System to Support Earthquake Research and Disaster Response. Computing in Science and Engineering. vol.14, no.5, pp. 21–30, doi:10.1109/MCSE.2012.59, 2012.
Xia, D, Xie, X, Xu, Y, Web GIS server solutions using open-source software, 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Open-source Software for Scientific Computation (OSSC), pp. 135–138, IEEE 2009.
Acknowledgments
The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Parker, J., Donnellan, A., Glasscoe, M. et al. Advantages to Geoscience and Disaster Response from QuakeSim Implementation of Interferometric Radar Maps in a GIS Database System. Pure Appl. Geophys. 172, 2295–2304 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-014-0886-8
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-014-0886-8