Satellite InSAR Data: Reservoir Monitoring from Space (EET 9)

Satellite radar data for surface deformation monitoring are gaining increasing attention, and not only within the oil and gas community. They provide a powerful tool for remotely measuring extremely small surface displacements over large areas and long periods of time, without requiring the installation of in-situ equipment. However, apart from remote sensing and radar specialists, only a relatively small number of geoscientists and engineers understand how a radar sensor orbiting the Earth at about 7 km/s from 700km above the Earth’s surface can actually measure ground displacements of a fraction of a centimetre. This book provides a step-by-step introduction to satellite radar sensors, SAR imagery, SAR interferometry and advanced InSAR techniques. Rather than a tutorial for remote sensing specialists, the book starts from very basic concepts and explains in plain language the most important ideas related to SAR data processing and why geoscientists and engineers should take a vested interest in this new information source.

Contents

Acknowledgements
General disclaimer

1 Motivation

2 Satellite radar images
2.1 Key features of satellite radar systems
2.2 Amplitude and phase information: the magic of complex numbers
2.3 Range resolution, signal compression and formation of a range line
2.4 Acquisition geometry and synthetic aperture
2.5 SAR images
2.6 Geometric distortions and satellite orbit
2.7 Scattering mechanisms
2.8 What we have learned so far

3 SAR interferometry
3.1 Measuring phase variations
3.2 Modelling the interferometric phase
3.3 SAR interferograms
3.4 Phase decorrelation and coherence maps
3.5 Atmospheric effects
3.6 Phase Unwrapping
3.7 What we have learned so far

4 Multi-interferogram technique
4.1 Some history
4.2 The Permanent Scatterer (PS) technique: PSInSAR
4.3 SBAS and other multi-interferogram techniques
4.4 SqueeSAR
4.5 Estimation of 2-dimensional displacement fields
4.6 Precision assessment and validatio
4.7 What we have learned so far

5 Oil and gas applications
5.1 Surface expression of reservoir dynamics: an opportunity more than a problem
5.2 Inversion of surface deformation data
5.3 A case study in Middle East
5.4 Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
5.5 Underground Gas Storage (UGS)
5.6 Off-shore applications
5.7 What we have learned so far

6 Conclusions and future trends
6.1 InSAR application
6.2 Artificial Reflectors
6.3 Satellite archives, historical analyses and monitoring projects
6.4 New trends and why we should care

References
Index