This online course focuses on the applications of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing for disaster monitoring. Learn about weather and illumination-independent SAR remote sensing technology, and explore its applications to natural hazards including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and flooding.

✅ 4 weeks – 4–6 hours per week

✅ Self-paced – Progress at your own speed

✅ Free Limited Access Optional upgrade available.

On completion of this course, you should be able to:

✅ Week 1: Course Introduction and Basic Capabilities of SAR & InSAR

Week 1 will introduce you to the main content and structure of this course. You will also learn about the lab environment that will be available for learners on the “verified track”. The following items will be addressed:

    • Introduction to course
    • Presentation of course syllabus
    • Basic principles and capabilities of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging
    • Concepts of Interferometric SAR processing and its applications to disaster monitoring
    • Verified Track: Lab exercise on exploring SAR time series for flooding events
    • Verified Track: Lab exercise analyzing and interpreting InSAR products

✅ Week 2: InSAR Time Series Analysis Techniques

InSAR time series analysis techniques enable the tracking of cm-scale surface displacements over long times. These techniques are relevant for a number of hazard applications such as landslide and volcano monitoring. In Week 2 we will address:

    • The Concept of InSAR Time Series Analysis
    • Point Target-Based InSAR Time Series Analysis
    • Distributed Scatterer InSAR Time Series Analysis
    • Verified Track: Lab exercise exploring PSI time series data over Norway

✅ Week 3: Disaster Monitoring using SAR Image Data

SAR sensors are highly stable imaging systems that are ideal for the identification of changes on the earth surface. Week 3 will introduce participants to a range of techniques to monitor hazard events and identify changes from multi-temporal SAR images.

    • Surface water signatures in SAR
    • A Threshold-based surface water mapping method
    • Verified Track: Hands-on flood mapping using Jupyter Notebooks
    • SAR change detection techniques
    • Verified Track: Lab exercise on time series change detection to map deforestation

✅ Week 4: Disaster Monitoring using InSAR Techniques

In this part of the course, we will apply the information learned in Week 4 to monitor surface displacements at volcanoes and in landslide-prone areas. Specifically, Week 6 will address the following items:

    • Review of InSAR workflow for a geophysical application
    • Estimating volcano source model parameters from InSAR
    • Verified Track: Lab exercise estimating Mogi source parameters for Okmok volcano, Alaska
    • Landslides monitoring using SBAS InSAR
    • Verified Track: Lab exercise mapping landslide motion in California using InSAR time series data

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