Multi‐scale Decomposition of Co‐seismic Deformation from High Resolution DEMs: a Case Study of the 2004 Mid‐Niigata Earthquake

Decomposing co‐seismic deformation is an immediate need for researchers who are interested in earthquake inversion analysis and geo‐hazard mapping. However, conventional InSAR or digital elevation models (DEMs) imagery analyses only provide the displacement in the Line‐of‐Sight (LOS) direction or elevation changes. The 2004 Mid‐Niigata earthquake in Japan provides lessons on how to decompose co‐seismic deformation from two sets of DEMs. If three adjacent points undergo a rigid‐body‐translation movement, their co‐seismic deformation can be decomposed by solving simultaneous equations. Although this method has been successfully used to discuss tectonic deformations, the algorithm needed improvement and a more rigorous algorithm, including a new definition of nominal plane, DEMs comparability improvement and matrix condition check is provided. Even with these procedures, the obtained decomposed displacement often showed remarkable scatter prompting the use of the moving average method, which was used to determine both tectonic and localized displacement characteristics. A cut‐off window and a pair of band‐pass windows were selected according to the regional geology and construction activities to ease the tectonic and localized displacement calculations, respectively. The displacement field of the tectonic scale shows two major clusters of large lateral components, and coincidently major visible landslides were found mostly within them. The localized displacement helps to reveal hidden landslides in the target area. As far as the Kizawa hamlet is concerned, the obtained vectors show down‐slope movements, which are consistent with the observed traces of dislocations that were found in the Kizawa tunnel and irrigation wells. The method proposed has great potential to be applied to understanding post‐earthquake rehabilitation in other areas.