Combining TerraSAR-X and Landsat Images for Emergency Response in Urban Environments

Abstract

Rapid damage mapping following a disaster event, especially in an urban environment, is critical to ensure that the emergency response in the affected area is rapid and efficient. This work presents a new method for mapping damage assessment in urban environments. Based on combining SAR and optical data, the method is applicable as support during initial emergency planning and rescue operations. The study focuses on the urban areas affected by the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami event in Japan that occurred on 11 March 2011. High-resolution TerraSAR-X (TSX) images of before and after the event, and a Landsat 5 image before the event were acquired. The affected areas were analyzed with the SAR data using only one interferometric SAR (InSAR) coherence map. To increase the damage mapping accuracy, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was applied. The generated map, with a grid size of 50 m, provides a quantitative assessment of the nature and distribution of the damage. The damage mapping shows detailed information about the affected area, with high overall accuracy (89%), and high Kappa coefficient (82%) and, as expected, it shows total destruction along the coastline compared to the inland region.

Ten Years of TerraSAR-X—Scientific Results

“…Four papers [14][15][16][17] deal with the radiometric and geometric performance validation and with the new methods which made TerraSAR-X the first SAR sensor with geodetic accuracy. Two papers about mapping urban environments [18,19] and one about the cryosphere [20] finalize the different topics covered in this special issue.…”

A Multi-Objective Modeling Method of Multi-Satellite Imaging Task Planning for Large Regional Mapping

“…Regional mapping refers to the process of obtaining remote sensing images through planning satellites and generating complete regional images through geometric and radiation processing of remote sensing images [1]. Regional remote sensing image products are widely used in many fields, such as urban planning and construction [2], land census and national condition monitoring [3], agriculture and forestry change and monitoring [4], ecological environment assessment and monitoring, emergency response and rescue [5,6], and national defense security. With the development of imaging satellites, relevant organizations and departments in the world are committed to producing regional imaging products for a city, a country, or even the world.…”

Integration of Satellite Data with High Resolution Ratio: Improvement of Spectral Quality with Preserving Spatial Details

“…A higher spectral resolution is obtained at the expense of spatial resolution [11]. Multispectral imaging can be applied in many fields of research such as: land-use and landcover mapping [1,12], archeological analyses [13], emergency response [14] and vegetation condition analyses [15,16,17]. This imaging often supports change detection [18,19] and also might provide information for predicting some phenomena [20].…”