Study of 2010 Eruption of Merapi Volcano, Indonesia Using Alos Palsar Interferometry

Mount Merapi is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia, and its most recent massive eruption was in November 2010, causing great loss of lives and assets. Land movement of the volcano and the regions around were known to be significant. One of the methods that can be used to monitor such motion is Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images are acquired from the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-Band SAR (PALSAR) sensor, which managed to capture images of Mount Merapi before, during and after the eruption. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM) was used as a reference topology in deriving the Differential InSAR (DInSAR). However, it is known that DInSAR has limited application when the land movement is too significant due to the wrapping of phases. Therefore, the interferograms of the volcano before and after the eruption were used to estimate the land movement for large changes, while the DInSAR method was used for changes less than half a meter to generate a complete land motion map of the volcano.