Displacement Portal#

What is the Displacement Portal?#

The Displacement Portal provides the ability to visualize and interact with the OPERA Surface Displacement (DISP) Products.

What are the OPERA Surface Displacement Products?#

The OPERA Surface Displacement (DISP) Products are Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR)-derived displacement data made using a hybrid Persistent Scatterer (PS) and Distributed Scatterer (DS) time series processing approach. For more details, see the OPERA DISP Product Specification Document. The OPERA DISP products provide information on anthropogenic and natural movements of the Earth's surface, such as subsidence due to groundwater or oil and gas extraction, uplift due to wastewater injection, and ground motion from tectonic faults, landslides, volcanoes, and more. All OPERA DISP products are provided in the satellite’s line-of-sight (LOS) direction, meaning that surface movements are measured relative to the LOS, indicating whether a point is moving toward (positive value) or away from (negative value) the satellite. LOS information is shown in graphic form along the top panel of the Displacement Portal. The OPERA DISP product suite is derived from Sentinel-1A/B/C and NISAR satellite SAR data and covers North America (United States and U.S. Territories, Canada within 200 km of the US border, and all mainland countries from the southern U.S. border up to and including Panama).

The OPERA DISP product includes a “short wavelength displacement” layer, which is the current data displayed on the Displacement Portal. The short wavelength displacement layer is filtered to highlight local displacement (< 30 km wavelength) and remove long wavelength signals such as atmospheric noise. See the FAQ and the OPERA DISP Product Specification Document for a more detailed description of the product layer.

In general, OPERA creates the DISP products as soon as the input data from the satellite becomes available. However, the OPERA DISP products from Sentinel-1 are being rolled out in two phases. Phase 1 (now through end of 2025) is focused on creating historical data between July 2016 and December 2024. Phase 2 is focused on creating any remaining historical data and all new products as the input satellite data becomes available.

The Displacement Portal provides the ability to visualize and interact with these products. The Displacement Portal is coming soon. Check back for more updates.

To download the OPERA DISP products, see NASA Earthdata.

Beginning your Displacement Search#

Map Base Layers#

The available base map layers can assist you in selecting your area of interest (AOI). In the top left corner of the map, you may click the checkbox to toggle your desired map layers on or off.

Basic Velocity#

This layer shows velocity, derived using the short wavelength displacement layer from the DISP product. See the FAQs for more details. There are separate Ascending and Descending satellite track layers, and the layer will update automatically to only display the correct direction based on your search filters.

Selecting AOIs#

When you first access the Displacement Portal, the point selector is active. You may click your desired point(s) on the map. When you are done adding your Areas of Interest (AOIs), you can click the Draw toggle to stop drawing. You may click it again to select more AOIs on the map.

Once you have selected the AOI, the results panel will appear. The left panel lists your selected AOIs, labeled as Series 1, Series 2, and so on. It will also display the frame associated with each AOI. A spinning loading icon will be displayed next to each series while it is loading. The chart is displayed in the right panel.

Each Series is color coded. Hovering over the AOI in the AOI list, on the chart, or on the map will highlight that AOI in all three locations.

Additional Map Layers#

In the top left corner of the map, there are additional map layers available. You may click the checkbox to select your desired layer.

Rollout#

This layer shows color-coded regional priorities for Displacement Product generation during the historical processing phase, which would initially include data from July 2016 to December 2024 and will be updated by the end of 2025. Regions are prioritized from 1 through 3, with 1 being the highest processing priority. Note that some sub-regions may be de-prioritized based on snow cover, vegetation, or other factors. There are separate Ascending and Descending variants, and the layer will update to display the correct direction based on your search filters.

Interacting with Displacement Portal Results#

Area of Interest List#

Hovering over an AOI will highlight it on the AOI list, chart, and map.
By default, all AOIs are shown on the chart. You may click the checkbox next to an AOI to toggle how it is displayed on the chart. When checked, AOIs will appear on the chart. When unchecked, they will appear as a grayed out series on the chart.
- You may click the All AOIs checkbox to gray out all time series on the chart.
You may click the trash can icon to delete an AOI from your list. This will remove it from the map, list, and chart.
You can delete all series by clicking the trash can icon next to All AOIs. A confirmation message will be displayed. Clicking Cancel will not delete any AOIs. Clicking Delete will delete all existing AOIs from the map, list, and chart.

Chart#

Hovering over a time series on the chart will highlight it in the AOI list, chart, and map. Hovering over individual points in the chart will provide additional information on that point.
You may use the mouse to navigate the chart. There are Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons in the top right of the chart, or you can scroll with your mouse. The Zoom to Fit button will fit all time series into the visible chart.
Right-click any point in a time series to reset the first point of the displacement time series to 0 using Shift to Zero.
The Date Slider is below the chart. You may drag the pips to adjust the start and end dates.
Click the Export icon in the top right to download a .csv file for all AOIs in your time series. Note: If an AOI is deselected in the AOI list it will not be included in the csv export.
Click the Settings icon in the top right for additional options
- Click the Show Lines checkbox to toggle lines on or off.
- Click the Show Linear Fit checkbox to show the linear fit for each time series. The linear fit equations will be displayed above the chart. Dashed lines representing the linear fit will appear on the chart.
- Click Reset Chart Reference to reset the chart to its original baseline reference.
The short wavelength displacement data is referred to as Local Displacement on the y-axis of the chart.
OPERA DISP data may be masked when they are flagged as low quality (see FAQ). Masked data will be indicated on the chart using hollow points. The additional information provided when hovering over the point will indicate there is no valid data for that point.

Flight Direction#

In the header bar, click the Flight Direction button to change the flight direction. Changing the flight direction will update the chart, and all selected map layers. The flight direction options are Ascending (satellite heads from south to north) and Descending (satellite heads from north to south). Icons to the right of the Flight Direction button will show the satellite heading, radar look direction, and look angle range. The icons will update based on the selected direction.

Search Tools#

There are additional options available in the top right of the header bar.

The Share/Save button opens the Saved Searches and Share Search menu. From Saved Searches, you can save or view a displacement search. You can also view your displacement search history. Share Search allows you to copy the current URL to share your search, or you may email the link.
The Info button opens a modal with more information on the OPERA Surface Displacement Products (DISP).
The Help icon opens the Vertex help menu, which includes video tutorials and documentation.
The language selector enables you to switch languages. Currently, English and Spanish are available.
The Sign In icon displays the user options, including Saved Searches, Search History, Saved Filters, and Preferences.