Intertidal flat topographies measured by long-baseline airborne sar and tandem-x

Intertidal flats which are located between land and ocean are productive and rapidly changing places. But these places are now facing many environmental challenges related to climate change and human-induced impacts. Topographic change related to sedimentation or erosion in intertidal flats is the most evident sign of the environmental changes. The intertidal flats usually have small topographic variations (less than 5m) and experience ebb and flood tides every day. Thus, the conventional SAR interferometric techniques (repeat-pass InSAR) cannot be applied for generating DEMs in these intertidal flats. In this study, we developed a long-baseline single-pass airborne interferometric SAR (InSAR) system that has small ambiguity height and collected airborne InSAR data in several intertidal flats, the west coast of Korean peninsula. The constructed topographies using the long-baseline airborne InSAR system were compared with TanDEM-X DEM obtained during long-baseline mission phase.