Monitoring subsidence of waste piles and infrastructures of active open PIT iron mine in the Brazilian Amazon Region using SBAS interferometric technique and TerraSAR-X data

• Main Authors: Gama, Fabio F., Cantone, Alessio, Santos, Athos R., Pasquali, Paolo, Paradella, Waldir R., Mura, Jose C., Silva, Guilherme G.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Area measurement; Brazilian Amazon; Coherence; Displacement measurement; Extraterrestrial measurements; Interferometry; Iron; Monitoring; open pit mine; SBAS; Synthetic aperture radar; TerraSAR
• ISSN: 2153-6996; 2153-7003
• DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS.2015.7325755

This paper presents the results of applying SBAS (Small Baseline Subset) differential interferometric technique using 33 Stripmap mode images from the TerraSAR-X satellite, over a 1-year monitoring, Stripmap mode, for detection of ground deformation processes in five Carajas open pit iron mines in the state of Pará/Brazil in Amazon region, characterized by torrential rains. The SBAS algorithm was used for the interferometric processing, with coherence threshold of 45%, 4 looks, Delaunay Minimum Cost Flow (MCF), with a reference GeoEye-1 DEM, which allowed obtaining a synoptic view of the mine complex, covering the infrastructure and benches, as well as detecting the deformation in one mine (N5W). In order to monitor the waste piles, a lower coherence value (30%) was necessary. The results obtained were consistent with field work data, including topographic surveying, showing that this technique can be very useful for ground movement alert, planning, and risk assessment.