Impact Assessment of Flood Events Based on Multisource Satellite Remote Sensing: The Case of Kahovka Dam

Abstract

On June 6, 2023, the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was damaged, causing a flood that could have had a significant impact on society. A single satellite may not provide sufficient data for timely disaster response. To overcome this, a combination of optical images, a new generation of hydrological monitoring satellite data, and nighttime light data were employed to analyze the disaster. Sentinel-3 provides useful hydrological information for quickly identifying and locating disaster areas, while surface water and ocean topography are able to detect changes in water surface elevation, providing a direct view of the flood's impact on the water area and surface elevation. The datasets both provide information about the extent of the flood area, which is more detailed than that provided by a single source. Furthermore, the NPP-VIIRS data not only reflects the indirect impact of the disaster on the lives and production of the local population, but also provides an intuitive assessment of the damage to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant's power supply. The data showed that the disaster affected an area of about 8 km on either side of the river downstream of the dam. This enables the prediction of the damage and the postdisaster reconstruction strategy from a humanistic perspective. The combination of these three data types enables the specific impact of the disaster to be gauged in terms of its scope, extent, impact on human life, and the postdisaster recovery situation. This provides a scientific reference for the timely formulation and implementation of disaster relief and postdisaster reconstruction measures.

Keywords

• Hydrological variations
• Kakhovka Dam
• NPP-VIIRS
• remote sensing
• Sentinel-3
• surface water and ocean topography (SWOT)