ARSF project 03/09 led by J. Mills . Site: Houghton le Spring, New Biggin.ARSF project 03/09 led by J. Mills . Site: Houghton le Spring, New Biggin.

This proposal to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Airborne Remote Sensing Facility (ARSF) sought to continue research outlined in a NERC ARSF application entitled Detecting, monitoring and predicting ground movement in the Magnesian Limestone and Coal Measures of the Durham Coalfield (ARSF Award No 02/34), flown in September 2002. It was proposed to acquire remote sensing data for two sites, Houghton-le-Spring (Houghton), Sunderland and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea (Newbiggin), Wansbeck. These sites are situated in the Durham and Northumberland coalfields respectively.

The subsequent acquisition of CASI and ATM data for Houghton in September 2003 will complement the hyperspectral imagery acquired in September 2002 and March 2003. This dataset will provide information about the development of surface disturbance during the twelve month period which will be compared to field mapping. The results from this work will also contribute to the analysis of the March and September 2003 Newbiggin imagery.

Displacement measurements will be made between the survey DEMs generated using GPS control points and DEMs generated from archive stereo photography. This process will utilise surface matching algorithms and other software being developed during the research to eliminate the need for ground control of archive photography.