Authors
Stacey Huang, Jeanne M Sauber, Eric Jameson Fielding, Richard Ray
Publication date
2022/12
Journal
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
Volume
2022
Pages
GC23B-08
Description
The rate of vertical land subsidence in the Samoan Islands has increased since the 2009 Samoa-Tonga earthquake (Han et al. 2019), relative to the pre-earthquake rate. Land subsidence strongly exacerbates the effects of sea level rise and has led to increased flooding that disrupts everyday life and threatens critical infrastructure in the Samoan islands. However, developing effective mitigation policies requires a more detailed picture of both local and broad-scale patterns of subsidence that is difficult to measure. Geographic and atmospheric characteristics of the Samoan Islands present challenges to remote sensing modalities: the archipelago consists of small, isolated landmasses with heavily vegetated and rugged topography, and the region experiences dense cloud cover year-round and moderate ionospheric activity.