Deformation, Strains, and Velocities for the Tibetan Plateau from Sentinel-1 InSAR, GNSS, and Levelling Data, version 1

This dataset provides velocity and strain rate fields for the Tibetan Plateau derived from Sentinel-1 Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and levelling data. Interferograms in GeoTIFF format at ~100 m resolution are available from the Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics - Looking Inside the Continents from Space InSAR (COMET-LiCSAR) portal (https://comet.nerc.ac.uk/comet-lics-portal/). Using the Looking Inside the Continents from Space with Small Baseline Subset (LiCSBAS) approach, line-of-sight displacement time series and average velocities at ~1 km resolution are inverted, applying corrections for troposphere, ionosphere, Earth tides, and plate motions. Also compiling GNSS velocities and levelling observations from published studies. Following the velmap methodology, a unified coarse 3D velocity field is obtained that fits the GNSS, levelling, and InSAR data. From this, mosaics of ascending and descending line-of-sight velocities in a Eurasia reference frame. Inverting pixel-by-pixel for the east-west and vertical velocities directly from the referenced line-of-sight velocities, using the north–south velocities from the coarse 3D velocity model as a constraint. Strain and rotation rates are calculated from the horizontal gradients of the median-filtered east-west velocities at InSAR resolution and the north-south velocities from the coarse velocity model. Further details are provided in Wright et al. (2025, Science).

The directory overview for this dataset are given below:
ENU_vels/
East-west, north-south, and vertical velocity fields, along with their associated uncertainties.

georeferenced_los_vels/
Line-of-sight (LOS) velocities in a Eurasia-fixed reference frame defined by GNSS

GNSS_levelling_data/
Compiled GNSS velocities and levelling rates from published studies.

LiCSBAS_los_vels/
Original LOS velocities and displacement time series derived from LiCSBAS processing.

strain_rates/
Components of the horizontal velocity gradient tensor, second invariant, maximum shear, dilatation, and vorticity.

velmap_strain_rates/
Strain rates calculated from velmap.

velmap_vels/
Coarse 3D velocity model derived from velmap.