Surface Reservoir Monitoring for CO2 Sequestration Using Radar Satellites

InSAR (Interferometry for Synthetic Aperture Radar) technology is a spaceborne measurement method, able to detect ground motion with millimetric exactness using radar satellite images. For CO2 sequestration, ground surface monitoring contributes to storage safety and a better understanding of the CO2 distribution inside the reservoir. Thanks to its accuracy, InSAR can contribute to an evaluation of the storage stability, since millimetric surface uplift could be one of the indicators for a potential storage leak. In addition, the large surface of survey provided by radar satellites, combined with the absence of maintenance of instrumentation make InSAR a very reliable and cost effective monitoring tool for long term CO2 storage.