SAR-Based Flood Monitoring for Flatland with Frequently Fluctuating Water Surfaces: Proposal for the Normalized Backscatter Amplitude Difference Index (NoBADI)

Space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a powerful tool for monitoring flood conditions over large areas without the influence of clouds and daylight. Permanent water surfaces can be excluded by comparing SAR images with pre-flood images, but fluctuating water surfaces, such as those found in flat wetlands, introduce uncertainty into flood mapping results. In order to reduce this uncertainty, a simple method called Normalized Backscatter Amplitude Difference Index (NoBADI) is proposed in this study. The NoBADI is calculated from a post-flood SAR image of backscatter amplitude and multiple images on non-flooding conditions. Preliminary analysis conducted in the US state of Florida, which was affected by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, shows that surfaces frequently covered by water (more than 20% of available data) have been successfully excluded by means of C-/L-band SAR (HH, HV, VV, and VH polarizations). Although a simple comparison of pre-flood and post-flood images is greatly affected by the spatial distribution of the water surface in the pre-flood image, the NoBADI method reduces the uncertainty of the reference water surface. This advantage will contribute in making quicker decisions during crisis management.

Automated summary

The study proposes a method called NoBADI to exclude water surfaces during floods, reducing uncertainty in flood mapping results and enabling quicker decision-making in crisis management.