Using InSAR for Surface Deformation Monitoring and Active Layer Thickness Retrieval in the Heihe River Basin on the Northeast Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau

Abstract In cold regions characterized by perennially frozen soil, climate warming has caused permafrost degradation, which is manifested by surface deformation and deepening of the active layer. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is a common method to obtain large‐scale surface deformation, especially in mountainous terrain where it is difficult to install a large number of monitoring sites. Here, we used Sentinel‐1A SAR data acquired from March 2017 to March 2021 to monitor surface deformation and estimate active layer thickness (ALT) using two methods—temperature‐based and soil moisture‐based—in the permafrost regions of the Heihe River Basin on the northeast Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau. We find that the seasonal deformation amplitude ranges 10–60 mm, and the annual mean vertical deformation trend ranges from −40 to 30 mm/a. We verify the ALT estimates with observations and find that the method based on soil moisture has higher accuracy and is therefore more applicable in this particular study area. The ALT gradually decreases from the southeast to the northwest, ranging from 0.3 to 6.5 m, with an average value of 2.47 m. These results contribute to better quantifying the response of permafrost change and to understanding the spatial distribution of ALT on a large scale, serving as guidance for engineering and other applications.