DEM Construction using DInSAR

Abstract. A digital elevation model (DEM) is a 3D visualization of a terrain surface. It can be used in various analytical studies such as topographic feature extraction, hydrology, geomorphology and landslides analysis etc. Uttrakhand region is affected with landslides, earthquake and flash flood phenomenon. Hence this study was focused on DEM generation using Differential SAR Interferometry (DINSAR) on ALOS PALSAR dataset. Two Pass DINSAR technique involves one interferometric pair in addition with an external DEM. The external DEM was used as a reference to reduce topographic errors. The data processing steps were image co-registration, interferogram generation, interferogram flattening (Differential Interferogram), interferogram filtering, coherence map, phase unwrapping, orbital refinement and re-flattening and DEM generation. Interferogram fringes observed in forest areas were due to temporal decorrelation and the fringes in mountain regions were obtained due to topography changes (may be due to landslides in rainy season). The range of elevation in generated DEM were 132 m to 2823 m and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) error was 36.765159 m. The generated DEM was compared with ASTER DEM and variation in height was analyzed. Atmospheric effects were not removed due to geometrical and temporal decorrelation which affect the accuracy.