Ground displacements on Aitik tailings dams using SAR Interferometry. (21/2018)

As part of the REmote SEnsing supporting surveillance and operation of Mines (RESEM) project, we performed a preliminary study about the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) for documenting ground displacements on tailings dams (Aitik copper mine, Sweden). The Stacking and SBAS methods have been applied to map the spatial distribution of the ground displacements based on 2015–2017 TerraSAR-X and Sentinel-1 satellite data, as well as to retrieve time series between May and November 2017. The 2D InSAR method has been used to combine results from ascending and descending SAR geometries. The report summarized described the main findings of the InSAR analysis and discuss the potential and limitations of the technique for applications in in the mining sector.