David Bekaert

David is a scientist at the Radar Science group of the “Radar Science and Engineering” Section. He is currently the Project Scientist for the JPL Observation Products for End-Users for Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) Project, and the JPL-Caltech Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) project overseeing a multi-disciplinary and diverse team of interns, postdocs, scientists, engineers, code developers, and science data system developers. He is a member of the NISAR Science Team supporting NISAR science team activities, applications, and the calval activities; as well as a member of the NASA Sea-level and Change Team. He is the PI of multiple NASA awarded proposals including the Earth Surface and Interior Program, ACCESS, and the NASA New Investigator Program in Earth Sciences. As part of his research program, he is the advisor for multiple undergraduate and graduate level interns, and postdocs.

He joined JPL as a postdoc in 2015 and became a staff member in 2016. He obtained his PhD in Geophysics and Geodesy at the University of Leeds, where his thesis was focused on the usage of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) to detect Slow Slip Events. Prior to his PhD, he was a Young Graduate Trainee at the Microwave Instruments section of the Earth Observation division of the European Space Agency, where he worked on ice penetrating radar. By training, David is an Aerospace Engineer, completing both his BSc. and MSc. at Delft University of Technology. During his studies, he was a JPL Visiting Student Researcher at the radar group, a Visiting PhD Researcher at Stanford School of Earth Sciences, and an intern at the Wave Interaction and Propagation section of the European Space Agency.


Education: 
  • PhD: University of Leeds, United Kingdom
  • Space Studies Program 2013: International Space University, France
  • MSc: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
  • BSc: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Research Interests: 

Solid Earth, Cryosphere, Tectonics, Subsidence, InSAR, Radar, noise corrections


Professional Experience: 

Current Roles

  • OPERA Project Scientist: April 2021 - current
  • WInSAR EC Vice Chair: December 2020 - current
  • ARIA Project Scientist: October 2019 - current
  • ARIA Science Product Lead: December 2017- current
  • Radar Scientist: October 2016 - current

 

Former Roles

  • WInSAR EC Secretary: December 2018 – December 2020
  • OPERA formulation Project Scientist: March 2020 – March 2021
  • Caltech Doctoral Postdocs at JPL: October 2015 – October 2016
  • YGT at the European Space Agency: May 2011 - July 2012
  • Intern at the European Space Agency and JPL: 2010, 2011
  • Teaching assistant: 2009-2013

Selected Awards: 
  • JPL OPERA team award for successfully passing of Preliminary Design Review
  • JPL NISAR team award for leading tropospheric noise working group
  • JPL OPERA team award for successfully completing pre-formulation phase
  • JPL ARIA team award for development and generation of operational cloud based standardized InSAR products.
  • Publication award University of Leeds, School of Earth and Environment
  • Outstanding Student Paper Award at the 2013 AGU Fall meeting
  • Royal Astronomical Society Grant
  • European Space Agency Scholarship

Selected Publications: 

2021

  1. J. Jones, C. E. Jones, and D P.S. Bekaert, Value of InSAR for Monitoring Land Subsidence to Support Water Management in the San Joaquin Valley, California; Journal of American Water Resources Association  https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12942
  2. T.C Harvey, B.D. Hamlington, T. Frederikse,  R. S. Nerem, C. G. Piecuch, W. C. Hammond, G. Blewitt, P. R. Thompson, D. P. S. Bekaert, F. W. Landerer, J. T. Reager, R. E. Kopp, H. Chandanpurkar, I. Fenty, D. Trossman, J. S. Walker & C. Boening, Ocean mass, sterodynamic effects, and vertical land motion largely explain US coast relative sea level rise. Commun Earth Environ 2, 233 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00300-w

2020

  1. Miller, M. M., Jones, C. E., Sangha, S. S., & Bekaert, D. P.S (2020). Rapid drought-induced land subsidence and its impact on the California aqueduct. Remote Sensing of Environment, 251, 112063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112063
  2. D.P.S. Bekaert, A.L. Handwerger, P. Agram, and D.B. Kirschbaum. InSAR-based detection method for mapping and monitoring slow-moving landslides in remote regions with steep and mountainous terrain: An application to Nepal. Remote Sensing of Environment 249 (2020): 111983. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425720303539
  3. Buzzanga, B., Bekaert, D. P., Hamlington, B. D., & Sangha, S. S. (2020). Toward sustained monitoring of subsidence at the coast using InSAR and GPS: An application in hampton roads, Virginia. Geophysical Research Letters, 47(18), e2020GL090013. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020gl090013
  4. B.D. Hamlington, A.S. Gardner, E. Ivins, J.TM Lenaerts, J.T. Reager, D.S. Trossman, E.D. Zaron et al.. Understanding of contemporary regional sea‐level change and the implications for the future. Rev. Geophys. 58, e2019RG000672 (2020). https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019RG000672
  5. K. D. Murray, R. B. Lohman and D. P. S. Bekaert, "Cluster-Based Empirical Tropospheric Corrections Applied to InSAR Time Series Analysis," in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 2204-2212, March 2021, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2020.3003271. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9130090

2019

  1. Murray, K.D.; Bekaert, D.P.S.; Lohman, R.B. Tropospheric corrections for InSAR: Statistical assessments and applications to the Central United States and Mexico. Remote Sens. Environ. 2019, 232, 111326 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425719303451
  2. S. Tung, E. J. Fielding, D. P. S. Bekaert and T. Masterlark, "Rapid geodetic analysis of subduction zone earthquakes leveraging a 3-D elastic Green’s function library", Geophys. Res. Lett., vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 2475-2483, Mar. 2019. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL080578
  3. Bekaert, D. P.S., Jones, C. E., An, K., & Huang, M.-H. (2019). Exploiting UAVSAR for a comprehensive analysis of subsidence in the Sacramento Delta. Remote sensing of environment, 220, 124–134. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425718304772

2018

  1. Milliner, C., Materna, K., Bürgmann, R., Fu, Y., Moore, A. W., Bekaert, D., et al. (2018). Tracking the weight of Hurricane Harvey's stormwater using GPS data. Science Advances, 4(9), eaau2477. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau2477
  2. E. Hussain, T. J. Wright, R. J. Walters, D.P.S. Bekaert, R. Lloyd, and A. Hooper Constant strain accumulation rate between major earthquakes on the North Anatolian Fault. Nat Commun 9, 1392 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03739-2
  3. Loftis, J.D.; Mitchell, M.; Atkinson, L.; Hamlington, B.; Allen, T.R.; Forrest, D.; Updyke, T.; Tahvildari, N.; Bekaert, D.; Bushnell, M. Integrated Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Observations in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Mar. Technol. Soc. J. 2018, 52, 68–83, https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mts/mtsj/2018/00000052/00000002/a...

2017

  1. Bekaert, D.P.S., Hamlington, B.D., Buzzanga, B. et al. Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar Survey of Subsidence in Hampton Roads, Virginia (USA). Sci Rep 7, 14752 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-15309-5
  2. Bufe, A., D. Bekaert, E. Hussain, B. Bookhagen, D. W. Burbank, J. A. Thompson Jobe, J. Chen, T. Li, L. Liu, and W. Gan (2017), Temporal changes in rock-uplift rates of folds in the foreland of the Tian Shan and the Pamir from geodetic and geologic data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, doi:10.1002/2017GL073627.
  3. Eric J. Fielding, Simran S. Sangha, David P. S. Bekaert, Sergey V. Samsonov, Jefferson C. Chang; Surface Deformation of North‐Central Oklahoma Related to the 2016 Mw 5.8 Pawnee Earthquake from SAR Interferometry Time Series. Seismological Research Letters 2017;; 88 (4): 971–982. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0220170010
  4. Huang, M., Fielding, E. J., Liang, C., Milillo, P., Bekaert, D., Dreger, D., & Salzer, J. (2017). Coseismic deformation and triggered landslides of the 2016 M 6.2 Amatrice earthquake in Italy. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(3), 1266–1274. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071687
  5. Vollrath, A.; Zucca, F.; Bekaert, D.; Bonforte, A.; Guglielmino, F.; Hooper, A.J.; Stramondo, S. Decomposing DInSAR Time-Series into 3-D in Combination with GPS in the Case of Low Strain Rates: An Application to the Hyblean Plateau, Sicily, Italy. Remote Sens. 2017, 9, 33. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9010033

2016

  1. D. Bekaert, P. Segall, T.J. Wright, and A. Hooper (2016), A Network Inversion Filter combining GNSS and InSAR for tectonic slip modeling, J. Geophys. Res, doi:10.1002/2015JB012638.
  2. Hussain, E., Hooper, A., Wright, T. J., Walters, R. J., & Bekaert, D. P. S. (2016). Interseismic strain accumulation across the central North Anatolian Fault from iteratively unwrapped InSAR measurements. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 121(12), 9000–9019. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JB013108
  3. C. Jones, K. An, R. Blom, J. Kent, E. Ivins, and D. Bekaert (2016), Anthropogenic and geologic influences on subsidence in the vicinity of New Orleans, Louisiana, J. Geophys. Res.
  4. E. Hussain, T.J, Wright, R.J. Walters, D.P.S. Bekaert, A. Hooper, and G. Houseman (2016), Geodetic observations of postseismic creep in the decade after the 1999 Izmit earthquake, Turkey: Implications for a shallow slip deficit, J. Geophys. Res, doi:10.1002/2015JB012737.

2015

  1. A. Constan, A. Armenteros, F. Lamas, S.M. Rosillo, J.M. Delgado, D. Bekaert, J.J.M. de Sousa, A.J. Gil, M. Caro Cuenca, R.F. Hanssen, J.G. Zaldivar, and C. Sanz De Galdeano (2015), Multi-temporal InSAR evidence of ground subsidence induced by groundwater withdrawal: the Montellano aquifer (SW Spain), Env. Earth Sci., doi:10.10072/s12665-015-5051-x.
  2. D. Bekaert, R.J. Walters, T.J. Wright, A.J. Hooper, and D.J. Parker (2015) Statistical comparison of InSAR tropospheric correction techniques, Remote Sensing of Environment, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2015.08.035
  3. D. Bekaert, A. Hooper, and T. Wright (2015), Reassessing the 2006 Guerrero slow slip event, Mexico: implications for large earthquakes in the Guerrero Gap, J. Geophys. Res., 120.
  4. D. Bekaert, A. Hooper, and T. Wright (2015), A spatially-variable power-law tropospheric correction technique for InSAR data, J. Geophys. Res., 120.

2014

  1. D. Bekaert, N. Gebert, C.C. Lin, F. Heliere, J. Dall, A. Kusk, S.S. Kristensen, Multi channel surface clutter suppression: East Antarctica P band SAR ice sounding in the presence of grating lobes, Annals of Glaciology, 55, 2014 (67) p. 9-21

2012

  1. A. Hooper, D. Bekaert, K. Spaans and M. Arıkan (2012), Recent advances in SAR interferometry time series analysis for measuring crustal deformation (solicited), Tectonophysics
David Bekaert
Address: 
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109
Phone: 818.354.1171
Fax Number: 818.393.3077
Email: 
david.bekaert@jpl.nasa.gov