Within the PSIC4 (Persistent Scatterers Interferometry Codes Cross Comparison and Certification for Long term differential interferometry) project, eight teams specialized in PSI processed a large stack of SAR images over the same test site. The site was located around the mining area of Gardanne, in Provence (France). Though the areas covered by the different PSI teams are considerably larger than the Gardanne mining area, the PSIC4 project was mainly focused on this area, where most of the ground deformations occur and the ground truths are available.

The “Provence Inter-comparison”, an activity of the Terrafirma Stage 2 project, involved the inter-comparison of the products of four PSI teams involved in the PSIC4 project. The analysed data correspond to four of the five Operational Service Providers (OSPs) of the Terrafirma project, namely Altamira Information, DLR, Gamma Remote Sensing and TeleRilevamento Europa (TRE). The analysis was started after the PSIC4 Final Presentation and the PSI validation workshop, held in ESRIN the 18th and 19th September 2006, where the final results of the PSIC4 project were presented. The main motivation for starting this complementary study was to take advantage of the full PSIC4 dataset by extending the analysis beyond the Gardanne mining area, thus getting new insights into this unique set of PS data. An additional motivation to perform this study was to collect inputs for the preparation of a new validation experiment, to be carried out as part of the Terrafirma project. The focus of this study is on the global inter-comparison performances of four TF OSPs. The inter-comparison studies how consistent are the results between different teams. It is worth emphasizing that all the results discussed in this paper refer to differences between PSI teams. These results should not be confused with the errors estimated in a validation experiment by comparing PS results against ground truths.

The following provide more information on: Provence Intercomparison Final Report , Provence Intercomparison presentation