Improving strain rate estimation from velocity data of non-permanent GPS stations: the Central Apennine study case (Italy)

An efficient procedure is proposed to define realistic lower limits of velocity errors of a non-permanent GPS station (NPS), i.e., a station where the antenna is installed and operates for short time periods, typically 10–20 days per year. Moreover, the proposed method is aimed at being independent of standard GPS data processing. The key is to subsample appropriately the coordinate time series of several continuous GPS stations situated nearby or inside the considered NPS network, in order to simulate the NPS behavior and to estimate the velocity errors associated with the subsampling procedure. The obtained data are used as lower limits to accept or correct the error estimates provided by standard data processing. The proposed approach is applied to data from the dense, non-permanent network in the Central Apennine of Italy based on a sequence of solutions for the overlapping time spans 1999–2003, 1999–2004, 1999–2005 and 1999–2007. Both the original and error-corrected velocity patterns are used to compute the strain rate fields. The comparison between the corresponding results reveals large differences that could lead to divergent interpretations about the kinematics of the study area.