Flood detection and flood mapping using multi-temporal synthetic aperture radar and optical data

Abstract

This paper discusses the thresholding and unsupervised classification methodologies, in order to find the inundated areas due to incessant rains and rise of water level in Rapti and Ghaghara Rivers during the month of August 2017. Used high resolution multi-temporal Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Optical images captured during the August 2017 floods in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The zonal statistics are calculated to find the inundated area in each district of the selected Area of Study (AOS). District-wise flood water mapping is done by superimposing the extracted water layer. The obtained results are validated against the meteorological observations. From the findings, it is evident that SAR data can effectively be used for flood water mapping and flood monitoring. These findings will therefore help to minimize the flood hazard impact and aid in augmenting the flexibility in flood management.

Keywords

• Thresholding
• Classification
• High resolution
• Synthetic aperture radar
• Multi-temporal