The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B7. Beijing 2008 
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dewatering plan. The critical details of where ground surface 
deformation might develop however can never be fully foreseen. 
In this study, InSAR integrated with groundwater pumping, site 
geologic and soil data was used to demonstrate its capability for 
ground surface deformation and EIA studies in and around an 
on-going open-pit Pipeline mine with intensive dewatering 
operations for the period 1996-2001. 
Although, the magnitude and temporal occurrence of land 
subsidence for the study area are not well known; data been 
sparse and accuracy varying, the InSAR-generated images, 
clearly demonstrate the capability of InSAR in successfully 
detecting subsidence and uplift at the very least to an accuracy 
of a few centimeter using the 35-day repeat SAR data and radar 
interferometric techniques under favourable environmental 
conditions. We assume, the high percentage of fine clay soil, 
classified as hydro-sensitive and known to exhibit shrink and 
swell characteristics underlying most of the mine area added to 
the groundwater pumping of such magnitude to induce 
subsurface volumetric shrinkage resulting in land subsidence. 
The fact that fringes in this area are only evident from the post- 
1996 InSAR pairs also suggest the most probable source of 
horizontal strains to be differential subsidence resulting from 
ongoing mine dewatering of the alluvial aquifer. 
The results of the integration of multi-temporal differential 
InSAR with Landsat TM, ASTER including groundwater 
pumping, rock and soil data in a GIS also provide evidences that 
InSAR can offer a relatively inexpensive means of assessing the 
environmental impact of dewatering driven effects around on 
going open-pit mine site and surroundings with a potential time 
lag of less than six months to a year. We hope our example 
study makes the wider remote sensing community more aware 
of the InSAR method’s capabilities in dewatering applications. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
This work was supported by the Arthur Brant Laboratory for 
Exploration Geophysics, University of Nevada Reno. The 
European Space Agency ERS 1/2 raw SAR scenes were 
provided through the Western North American InSAR 
(WInSAR) research consortium. ERS 1 /2 satellite orbits were 
obtained from the Delft Institute for Earth-Oriented Space 
Research, The Netherlands. The 1996-2004 Electronic copies of 
the groundwater pumped to the infiltration were received from 
the Nevada Division of Water Resources. JPL’s ROI PAC 
Research Interferometry package was used to prepare the 
interferograms. 
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