PS-InSAR Monitoring of Landslide Activity in the Black Sea Coast of the Caucasus

The landslide activity in the area of Bolshoy Sochi (Big Sochi) situated at the Black Sea coast of the Great Caucasus has been studied using the StaMPS PS-InSAR method. We incorporated three sets of radar images from the satellites with different wavelengths ALOS, Envisat and Terra-SAR-X from both ascending and descending tracks which cover the time period from January 2007 to September 2012. Comparative investigation of surface displacements obtained from all the data sets is presented. Areas where high surface displacement rates have been located on the base of the satellite data coincide well with zones of high landslide activity according to ground observations. We constructed time series for the two landslides: in the Baranovka and Mamaika villages where considerable surface movements had been observed during the time of acquisitions. Analysis of the time series made it possible to determine periods of activity and relative stability of the landslides and compare them with ground observations.