Rapid flood mapping with Sentinel-1 SAR images: A case study of Maritsa River

Abstract

Floods, one of the most devastating natural disasters, cause a large number of property and lives lost around the world every year. In general, the disaster caused by seasonal rains falling more than expected causes great damage to business lines such as farming. It is important to detect the flood areas as soon as possible due to occured flood disaster and provide aid to the damaged areas. In this study, it is aimed to quickly identify flood areas by using pre and during disaster event images obtained by remote sensing method. Then, these areas were visualized with the using of dB backscatter values. Radar images are used to detect flood areas due to low dB backscatter values on water surfaces. In this process using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), the performances of different polarizations were also tested. Considering the results, the lowest backscatter value was obtained with VH polarization and it was demonstrated that the methods used in the study can be considered in rapid mapping of the flood areas.