Crustal deformation in Egypt's East Delta, as measured by InSAR with land use/land cover correlation

Abstract

Surface displacement in rapidly urbanizing deltaic environments represents a growing concern due to its potential impacts on infrastructure and land sustainability. This study presents a DInSAR-based assessment of relative surface displacement in Egypt's East Delta using two Sentinel-1 SAR acquisitions from 2018 and 2024, integrated with multi-temporal land use/land cover (LULC) analysis. The study estimates cumulative LOS displacement between two acquisition dates, not continuous deformation rates. Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) processing was applied to estimate cumulative line-of-sight displacement patterns, while supervised classification of optical satellite imagery was used to map LULC changes over the same period. Statistical analysis was conducted to examine the spatial relationship between displacement patterns and dominant land use classes. The results represent indicative spatial patterns of surface instability.The results reveal spatially variable displacement signals that show noTable association with urban expansion and agricultural land conversion. While the estimated displacement magnitudes are indicative and subject to atmospheric and decorrelation effects, the integrated analysis highlights areas potentially vulnerable to surface instability. The study demonstrates the value of combining DInSAR-derived displacement patterns with LULC information for preliminary surface stability assessment in data-scarce deltaic regions. The analysis is not intended to provide geodetically validated subsidence measurements.