Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR)

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has catapulted our ability to detect, quantify, and characterize bio- and geophysical processes (e.g., aquifer dynamics, tectonic, and magmatic processes, etc.). During the last four decades, InSAR has imaged the complete Earth’s land surface and transformed our understanding of how Earth works. Such revolution has been underpinned by a relentless development of radar technology and processing methods and facilitated by free and open access to satellite missions’ data. Although satellite radar images represent electrical and geometrical properties of the illuminated ground surface, here I focus on the geometric information obtained from the phase delay (interferometric) patterns between two or more SAR images. After a brief overview of InSAR history, I review the fundamentals of the most popular interferometric methods and present a vision of how InSAR will deliver wide and easily accessible global high-resolution processed information, highlighting future challenges to monitor and understand Earth dynamics. Finally, I encourage further work on developing new radar mission concepts and harnessing big-data processing workflows deployed on energy-efficient and fast computing infrastructure, while minimizing our environmental footprint. To achieve such ambitious goals, I argue that researchers and technicians will have to collaborate in an inclusive environment, with a wide and diverse range of beneficiaries to achieve sustainability on a fast-changing Earth.