Measuring coastal erosion along the coast of Ystad municipality using PSInSAR and SBAS

Sammanfattning: In this study the use of two radar interferometry methods, PSInSAR and SBAS, were tested as tools for measuring coastal erosion. If successful it would have allowed for measuring coastal erosion as a function of material lost. The study area used was Ystad municipality, in southern Sweden. Radar data for the study was provided by the ESA, the European space agency, from their ERS-2 and ENVISAT satellites, spanning the period 1998-2005. Unfortunately, even after many different configurations of settings were tested, the results indicated that both methods are very unsuited for use in rural areas such as Ystad, whether for measuring coastal erosion or otherwise. Both methods had severe problems achieving significant coverage after low coherence areas were masked out, and PSInSAR suffered from several anomalies. This is likely due to the highly vegetated nature of the landscape, which results in low coherence through temporal decorrelation. Of the two methods SBAS showed the most promise, but not nearly enough to be considereduseful. It is, based on the scientific literature, possible that simpler interferometry methods might have been more useful. This, and other possible ways to improve the results is something that this study discusses at length.