A framework for multi-sensor satellite data to evaluate crop production losses: the case study of 2022 Pakistan floods

Abstract

In August 2022, one of the most severe floods in the history of Pakistan was triggered due to the exceptionally high monsoon rainfall. It has affected ~ 33 million people across the country. The agricultural losses in the most productive Indus plains aggravated the risk of food insecurity in the country. As part of the loss and damage (L&D) assessment methodologies, we developed an approach for evaluating crop-specific post-disaster production losses based on multi-sensor satellite data. An integrated assessment was performed using various indicators derived from pre- and post-flood images of Sentinel-1 (flood extent mapping), Sentinel-2 (crop cover), and GPM (rainfall intensity measurements) to evaluate crop-specific losses. The results showed that 2.5 million ha (18% of Sindh’s total area) was inundated out of which 1.1 million ha was cropland. The remainder of crop damage came from the extreme rainfall downpour, flash floods and management deficiencies. Thus approximately 57% (2.8 million ha) of the cropland was affected out of the 4.9 million ha of agricultural area in Sindh. The analysis indicated expected production losses of 88% (3.1 million bales), 80% (1.8 million tons), and 61% (10.5 million tons) for cotton, rice, and sugarcane. This assessment provided useful tools to evaluate the L&D of agricultural production and to develop evidence-based policies enabling post-flood recovery, rehabilitation of people and restoration of livelihood.

Glo3DHydroClimEventSet(v1.0): A global‐scale event set of hydroclimatic extremes detected with the 3D DBSCAN‐based workflow (1951–2022)

“…Pakistan since mid-June. In July and August 2022, Pakistan suffered from one of the most disastrous flood events on historical records, mainly due to the unexpected more-than-normal monsoon rainfall (Qamer et al, 2023). The detected event set of our study witnesses the peak times, lifetime and coverages of multiday (15 days) extreme precipitation (Nanditha et al, 2023) (Table 5).…”

The impact of tropical sea surface temperature on extreme precipitation in Pakistan during the summer of 2022

“…In 2022, Pakistan experienced severe flooding due to heavy monsoon rains. The multi-day anomalously high rainfall began in July 2022, resulting in approximately double (180%) the long-term average rainfall for that month in Pakistan (Ma et al 2023, Qamer et al 2023. Subsequently, in August 2022, rainfall continued to increase, exceeding 500% of its climatology average, ultimately leading to extreme floods in Pakistan (Malik et al 2023).…”

Fuzzy machine learning model for class-based flood damage assessment from planetscope temporal data

“…4 A loss and damage assessment (L & D) method was proposed to quantify agriculture production losses in Sindh province due to the Pakistan flood of 2022. 5 Even though natural disasters cannot be avoided, proper disaster management practices can effectively reduce their impacts. Remote sensing is an effective tool that assists in all phases of the disaster management cycle from the early stages to the relief operations with its ideal ability of providing high spatial and multi-temporal datasets even in inaccessible areas.…”