Analysis of SAR-derived products to support emergency management during volcanic crisis: La Palma case study

Abstract

This paper analyses the performance of SAR-based results to support emergency management operations during the volcanic crisis of La Palma island. Tajogaite eruption began on September 19th 2021 affecting a high populated area and the surrounding farmland, used for different agricultural purposes. SAR datasets obtained from Sentinel-1, COSMO-SkyMED, PAZ-TerraSAR-X and Capella satellites, were processed to calculate amplitude, coherence and differential interferograms. These results have permitted to map the morphology of the volcanic cone, the evolution of lava flows and the regional displacements. The comparison of the results obtained with the different satellites has been useful to understand their performance during an emergency scenario triggered by a volcanic eruption. COSMO-SkyMED has provided the most useful information for the analysis of the cone morphology and the lava flows. Sentinel-1 showed the best performance for regional displacements monitoring, whereas PAZ results was the second best option for all the retrieved products.