EZ-InSAR-3: An open-source environment for interferometric synthetic aperture radar data processing in python

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a rapidly advancing technology for measuring ground surface motions at mm-scale from satellites with applications in earth sciences, geodesy and geotechnical engineering. Although several open-source software packages are available for robust processing of SAR and InSAR imagery, they usually require in-depth knowledge of SAR/InSAR methods and computational tools. Here we present a new version of EZ-InSAR – now written in Python – that offers an evolved, user-friendly, fully integrated, open-source environment for SAR/InSAR computations and that bridges several open-source SAR/InSAR processors. This new version contains all the tools for SAR/InSAR workflows: e.g., from automatic downloading of Sentinel-1 SAR imagery to InSAR displacement time series analysis, as well as tools for data visualisation and verification. EZ-InSAR can be integrated into Python scripts, launched via command lines or used via a built-in Graphical User Interface. The toolkit is supported by comprehensive documentation. We demonstrate the capabilities of EZ-InSAR by computing ground surface displacements at two volcanic areas (Campi Flegrei Caldera, Italy; and Long Valley Caldera, USA) and by comparing the InSAR results with in-situ Global Navigation Satellite System measurements. The new Python version of EZ-InSAR is a more accessible, efficient and up-to-date toolkit for remote sensing of ground deformation and monitoring of geohazards.