Background

Change in land surface elevation is associated with landslides, coastal subsidence, fluid extraction/injection, climate change, and other geohazards. Such events across the United States (U.S.) cause billions of dollars in damage every year. Mitigation of damage requires the ability to identify and track the magnitude of vertical land surface motions. The Vertical Land Motion (VLM) solution will provide such information by leveraging the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG)-2018 North America Deformation Product in combination with dense global position information from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).​

Status

This activity is currently in pre-formulation. Initially proposed in SNWG-2020, it will combine results from the SNWG-2018 North America Deformation Product with precise vertical and horizontal geodetic control from NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey and the National Science Foundation to generate a suite of products that track the magnitude of vertical land surface motions for the program of record for Sentinel-1 (launched in 2014) and NASA/Indian Space Research Organisation Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) (anticipated launch early 2025) along with generating annual and monthly (possibly biweekly) products. This product will likely include horizontal motion.

Solution Characteristics

Societal Impact

Land surface elevation changes across the U.S. cause billions of dollars in damage every year associated with landslides, coastal subsidence, fluid extraction/injection, climate change, and other geohazards. Identifying and tracking land surface elevation change is needed nationally for separating coastal subsidence and sea level rise impacts, hazard mitigation, and infrastructure stability/fragility assessment and modernization. This activity also supports the Administration's Climate and Infrastructure efforts.