5. Conclusions
Satellite SAR data was used to extract the earthquake damages
caused by the 2008 Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, Sichuan, China.
Change detection processing was performed to extract earthquake
damage information using both pre- and post-earthquake SAR
images. This study concluded that: (1) medium spatial resolution
SAR data, such as 10 m resolution ALOS PALSAR data, was effective
for landslides and barrier lakes detection, where landslides showed
stronger backscattering and barrier lake showed lower backscattering;
(2) high spatial resolution SAR data, such as 1 m resolution
TerraSAR-X data, can provide building collapse information, where
collapsed buildings showed lower backscattering compared to uncollapsed
buildings and the backscattering coefficient difference is