Dr david mason university of reading

Flood detection in rural areas using high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar images

David Mason and Javier Garcia-Pintado.

Dept. of Meteorology, University of Reading.

•

Flood extent delineation useful for – – Emergency flood relief management – Insurance purposes – Flood inundation model improvement

•

SAR images used because all-weather day-night

•

Floodwater generally appears dark in SAR

•

Two scenarios – – Flood delineation using manually-determined SAR backscatter threshold – Automatic threshold calculation prior to delineation

Delineation using manual threshold

Automatic threshold calculation

80 70

Percentage

60 50

Misclassified water (%)

40

Misclassified non-water (%)

30

Total misclassified (%)

20 10 0 40

50

60

70

80

Object mean intensity threshold T

Minimum misclassification at T = 57.