New Orleans Levee Displacement Study via Interferometric Point Target Analysis Technique and In Situ Instrumentation

AbstractThe integrity of a levee is an important issue that needs to be checked frequently. This can be done by monitoring the subsidence of the levee for a long time to identify the weak sections and prioritize maintenance efforts. This paper presents the application of a remote sensing technique to monitor the displacement of the London Avenue Canal levee in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 2009 to 2014. The input data were radar images taken by the German Space Agency’s X-band satellite, TerraSAR-X, over those 6 years. The displacement of a levee section at London Avenue was determined by analyzing the displacement of selected points using the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) method. The required steps to calculate the displacement at selected points were presented. In situ instrumentation was also installed to measure the displacement at several locations in the London Avenue section. The comparisons of the different monitoring methods revealed similar displacement trends. The favorable comparison increases confidence in the suitability of remote sensing techniques to monitor the displacement of entire levee systems.