Observation of the Ground Subsidence in the Abandoned Gaeun Coal Mining Area using JERS-l SAR

The ground subsidence that occurred in an abandoned coal mining area, Gaeun, Korea, was observed by using 25 JERS-1 SAR interferograms from November 1992 to October 1998. We estimated the subsidence on a subset of image pixels corresponding to point-wise permanent scatters (PSs) by exploiting a long temporal series of interferometric phases. The results were compared it with a distribution map of in situ examined crack level. PSs were identified by means of amplitude dispersion index and coherence of the interferograms. The measured subsidence rate represented the average velocity in a period of image acquisition and excluded complex nonlinear displacements such as an abrupt collapse. The mean line-of-sight velocity in the study area is 0.19cm/yr and an r.m.s. error is 0.18cm/yr. The center of the abandoned Gaeun coal mine (0.49cm/yr) and the area near to the Gaeun station (1.66cm/yr) were observed as most rapidly subsiding areas.