An evaluation of flood inundation mapping from MODIS and ALOS satellites for Pakistan

Abstract

The paper presents a moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) time-series imagery-based algorithm for detection and mapping of seasonal and annual changes in flood extent, and tests this using the flooding of the Indus River Basin in 2010 À one of the greatest recent disasters that affected more than 25 million people in Pakistan. The algorithm was applied to produce inundation maps for 10 annual flood seasons over the period from 2000 to 2011. The MODIS flood products were validated in comparison with advanced land observing system (ALOS) sensors, which have both advanced visible and near infrared radiometer and phased array type L-band synthetic images using the flood fraction comparison method. A simple threshold method is created to cluster the data to identify the flood pixels in the imagery. Calculations are then made to estimate a flood area for each resolution. A statistical study is performed to analyze false positive and false negative rates using the ALOS sensors as 'ground truth'. Comparison of two flood products at a grid size of 10 km resulted in the coefficient of determination range of 0.72À0.97. This research points to a relevant spatial resolution that could be effectively used to obtain accurate mapped products of the extent of the inundated area. The approach can be used to quantify the damage caused by floods.

Spatio-Temporal Rainfall Variability and Flood Prognosis Analysis Using Satellite Data over North Bihar during the August 2017 Flood Event

“…For instance, the flood of 2008 in Kosi River was mostly attributed to a collapse of the embankment near the Kushaha village of Sunsari district at the Indo-Nepal border and as a result, it caused flooding in Purnia, Madhepura, Saharsa, Supaul, Kahagaria, Katihar and Araria districts [61,62]. In the 2010 flood event, it was reported that Khagaria, Supaul, Araria, Katihar, and Madhepura districts were most adversely affected and the detailed flood maps based on ALOS and RADASAT satellite can be found in Amarnath et al [63] and FMISC Flood Report [34].…”

Remote Sensing and Historical Morphodynamics of Alluvial Plains. The 1909 Indus Flood and the City of Dera Ghazi Khan (Province of Punjab, Pakistan)

“…Blue dotted line represents the active floodplain in 1907. Many Satellite-derived products were produced to study this event [38][39][40]. The images show how the water occupies most of the early twentieth C. floodplain.…”

“…Strategies developed by human societies inhabiting Indus alluvial plains adapt the constructed social landscape to the geomorphological conditions and, at the same time, respond to the particular historical socio-political and cultural environment. Monitoring of the river conditions, the building of hydraulic infrastructure, and mobility summarises the basic elements of the management systems documented in the nineteenth century Indus valley [43], and they are not far from current approaches of 23 to flood management [31,34,36,40,56]. It is only to be expected that these were part of the landscape management strategies of past societies inhabiting this type of environment.…”

Use of aerial multispectral images for spatial analysis of flooded riverbed-alluvial plain systems: the case study of the Paglia River (central Italy)

“…Moreover, the use of remote sensing techniques appears to be fundamental even for flood risk management (Franci et al 2014;Amarnath & Rajah 2015). Bryant and Gilvear (1999) used remote sensing to quantify geomorphic changes in the Tay River (Scotland), coupling the identification of land-use changes in riparian areas and the identification of bathymetric changes (derived from wavelength range -bandwidth and reflectance) for the riverbed.…”