Background
The Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG)-2018 assessment found that knowing where the land surface is deforming would help satisfy the satellite needs of all the United States (U.S.) land monitoring agencies.
The North America DISP data product suite uses imagery from four radar satellites (Sentinel-1 A/B/C and NASA/Indian Space Research Organization Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR)) to produce two products that identify where and when the land surface has moved from processes such as sinkholes, land subsidence, landslides, permafrost motion, volcanic unrest, earthquakes, and more. These products have less than a 30 m resolution every 6, 12, or 24 days, depending on the input satellite data source.
The Sentinel-1's C-band radar observations provide a detailed deformation time series from July 2016, but have limited coverage in regions with significant vegetation. NISAR's L-band vegetation penetrating radar observations will be able to track land surface displacement in most of the ecosystems across North America.
Further information about NASA's Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project and the DISP product suite can be found below.
Status
Currently in Development, but Some Data are Available Now
OPERA DISP Sentinel-1 products are now available for download from NASA's Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC). The DISP NISAR (DISP-NI) product is not yet available.
Solution Characteristics
| Products | DISP-S1 | DISP-NI |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Sentinel-1A/B/C | NISAR |
| Processing Level | 3 | 3 |
| Temporal Coverage | Based on Sentinel-1 A/B/C availability (April 2014 - current) | Based on NISAR availability |
| Temporal Frequency | 6-12 days | 6-12 days |
| Spatial Coverage | North America* | North America* |
| Spatial Resolution | Less than or equal to 30 m | Less than or equal to 30 m |
| Data Format | HDF5 | HDF5 |
*North America: the United States (USA) and U.S. Territories, Canada within 200 km of the U.S. border, and all mainland countries from the southern U.S. border up to and including Panama
Societal Impact
This solution provides timely maps of ground surface motion caused by diverse factors such as earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, subsidence and/or uplift caused by mining, groundwater loss, or fluid injection. These types of outputs are critical for hazard response and monitoring of infrastructure stability.
Solution Resources
Need help using this solution? For more information about the DISP product suite, visit the following resources:
- OPERA DISP website
- OPERA Stakeholder Engagement Program
- OPERA DISP Applications Github
- OPERA DISP Product Suite: SNWG Solution Fact Sheet
Workshops and Open Meetings
| Title and Registration Link | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Fifth OPERA Stakeholder Engagement Workshop | The fifth OPERA workshop reports updates on the OPERA data products (including DISP) and how to access and leverage them for common applications. It also introduces OPERA's upcoming Vertical Land Motion (VLM) product suite. | Sept. 11, 2025 |
| Discover and Access the OPERA-DISP Dataset Using ASF DAAC’s Displacement Portal | This webinar focuses on the OPERA DISP dataset (now available through ASF DAAC) and the ASF Displacement Portal, which allows for spatial browsing and exploration of the OPERA DISP data. | May 29, 2025 |
| Fourth OPERA Stakeholder Engagement Workshop | The fourth OPERA workshop provides updates of OPERA data products in production, preliminary validation of data products that are near-production, and an overview of upcoming 2025 products. End users will have an opportunity to present their use (or planned use) of OPERA products. | July 19, 2024 |
| The Beginning of a New Era of Multidisciplinary NASA Satellite Data Products Enabled by the Satellite Needs Working Group | The SNWG is a U.S. Government inter-agency organizational body that was established in 2016 to identify the Earth observational gaps and data needs across the U.S. Federal Civilian Agencies. The SNWG effort is a 2-year process in which NASA identifies and ultimately implements a wide range of innovative solutions that benefit the entire Earth Science community. In this session, we invite representatives from NASA's SNWG Implementation TEam (NSITE) behind several of the highly successful SNWG solutions to describe the new capabilities and where to access the data. This includes the Harmonized Landsat/Sentinel-2 (HLS), which is a cloud optimized dataset that standardizes common data bands from the two satellite constellations thereby effectively doubling the data available to the community. Another SNWG solution is the generation of a global surface water extent product suite that combines the data frequency of the optical satellites and the cloud-penetrating capabilities of satellite radar for a uniformed and frequent surface water product. Other solutions include new radiation and clouds products, global air quality, land surface disturbance, North America deformation, vegetation indices suite with HLS, and planetary boundary layer products. | Dec. 13, 2023 |
| Third OPERA workshop: Introducing the OPERA Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC) Radar Backscatter and Coregistrated Single Look Complex (CSLC) Products | In this workshop, the OPERA team provided an update on the Dynamic Surface Water Extent and Surface Disturbance products. They also introduced provisional RTC and CSLC products. | June 27, 2023 |
| Second OPERA Workshop: Introducing OPERA Interim Products and Updates on Surface Water Extent and Disturbance Products | In this workshop, OPERA presented preliminary validation results for the surface water (DSWx) and surface disturbance (DIST) products while also providing information on how to access them. | Sept. 2, 2022 |