Results from ALOS and expectations to ALOS-2 in earthquake/volcano research

ALOS/PALSAR enabled us to detect crustal deformation with higher accuracy, and many successful results in earthquake/volcano research have been obtained from PALSAR data. For example, we obtained crustal deformations associated with earthquakes (e.g., the 2007 Solomon Islands Earthquake, the 2007 Chuetsu-oki Earthquake and the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake,), and fault-slip distributions were estimated with consideration of complex fault configurations. In the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, we discovered that coseismic extensional deformation had caused local deformation around volcanoes. In researches on Miyake-jima and Iwoto, we detected temporal change of volcano deformation using InSAR time-series analysis. In the ALOS-2 mission, observations with higher frequency, broader swath, and higher resolution will be carried out, and it will provide us more useful information for earthquake/volcano research. Additionally, new parameter (e.g., precise three-dimensional deformation) may be obtained utilizing various observation modes which is newly added to ALOS-2.