Application of CPT, an advanced DInSAR technique, to study surface displacement near Itoiz dam, Navarra, Spain

Abstract

Itoiz reservoir is located in Navarra, northern Spain, being a newly constructed gravity dam that stores the water from the Irati and the Urrobi rivers. The dam has a total height of 121 m, a total length of 525 m and a maximum water storage volume of 410 hm3. The aim of this work is to study the surface displacement field during the impoundment of the Itoiz water reservoir, Figure 1. Orbital SAR Differential Interferometry (DInSAR) techniques have been proven to be a useful and powerful tool in tectonic areas for surveying subtle surface deformations over several years related to geodynamic phenomena. An advanced DInSAR observation technique, Coherent Pixel Technique (CPT), has been applied to study the existence of deformation in the dam area in order to obtain mean velocities and time series of deformation. We have studied the applicability of this technique to study the surface displacement field during the impoundment of the Itoiz water reservoir. Specifically, we focus on the analysis of the stability of the left slope of the reservoir. See [1,2] for more details. We have used ERS and ENVISAT descending and ascending images concerning to the 1992-2008 and 2003-2008 periods respectively. We compare the observation results with the displacement induced by water loading obtained using a theoretical model.