Unlocking the full potential of Sentinel-1 for flood detection in arid regions

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Autorschaft

  • Shagun Garg
  • Antara Dasgupta
  • Mahdi Motagh
  • Sandro Martinis
  • Sivasakthy Selvakumaran

Externe Organisationen

  • University of Cambridge
  • Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ)
  • Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (RWTH)
  • Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)
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Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer114417
Seitenumfang23
FachzeitschriftRemote sensing of environment
Jahrgang315
Frühes Online-Datum9 Okt. 2024
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 15 Dez. 2024

Abstract

Climate change has intensified flooding in arid and semi-arid regions, presenting a major challenge for flood monitoring and mapping. While satellites, particularly Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), allow synoptically observing flood extents, accurately differentiating between sandy terrains and water for arid region flooding remains an open challenge. Current global flood mapping products exclude arid areas from their analyses due to the sand and water confusion, resulting in a critical lack of observations which impedes response and recovery in these vulnerable regions. This paper explores the full potential of Sentinel-1 SAR to improve near-real-time flood mapping in arid and semi-arid regions. By investigating the impact of various parameters such as polarization, temporal information, and interferometric coherence, the most important information sources for detecting arid floods were identified. Using three distinct arid flood events in Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan, different scenarios were constructed and tested using RF to evaluate the effectiveness of each feature. Permutation feature importance analysis was additionally conducted to identify key elements that reduce computational costs and enable a faster response during emergencies. Fusing VV coherence and amplitude information in pre-flood and post-flood imagery proved to be the most suitable approach. Results also show that leveraging crucial features reduces computational time by ∼35% as well as improves flood mapping accuracy by ∼50%. With advancements in cloud processing capabilities, the computational challenges associated with interferometric SAR computations are no longer a barrier. The demonstrated adaptability of the proposed approach across different arid areas, offers a step forward towards improved global flood mapping.

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Unlocking the full potential of Sentinel-1 for flood detection in arid regions. / Garg, Shagun; Dasgupta, Antara; Motagh, Mahdi et al.
in: Remote sensing of environment, Jahrgang 315, 114417, 15.12.2024.

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Garg, S., Dasgupta, A., Motagh, M., Martinis, S., & Selvakumaran, S. (2024). Unlocking the full potential of Sentinel-1 for flood detection in arid regions. Remote sensing of environment, 315, Artikel 114417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114417
Garg S, Dasgupta A, Motagh M, Martinis S, Selvakumaran S. Unlocking the full potential of Sentinel-1 for flood detection in arid regions. Remote sensing of environment. 2024 Dez 15;315:114417. Epub 2024 Okt 9. doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114417
Garg, Shagun ; Dasgupta, Antara ; Motagh, Mahdi et al. / Unlocking the full potential of Sentinel-1 for flood detection in arid regions. in: Remote sensing of environment. 2024 ; Jahrgang 315.
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