Earth Observation to Monitor and Redress Inequitable Post-Flood Recovery

Abstract

Floods impact communities worldwide, resulting in an estimated $651 billion (USD) in damages, countless fatalities, and threatened livelihoods over the last two decades alone. Climate change and urban development in flood-prone areas will continue to worsen flood-related losses increasing the urgency for effective tools to monitor recovery. Many Earth Observation (EO) applications exist for flood-hazard monitoring and provide insights on location, timing, and extent in near real-time and historically to estimate flood risk. Less attention has been paid to flood recovery, even though differing recovery rates and outcomes can have immediate and enduring effects within communities. Here, we define post-flood recovery as a change in land cover types, conditions, or land surface features in the days, weeks, months, or years following a flood event. EO data are uniquely positioned to monitor post-flood recovery and inform policy on hazard mitigation and adaptation but remain underutilized. We urge the EO and flood research community to renew focus on developing flood recovery applications to address growing flood risk. Both methodological innovations and translation of EO insights on flood recovery among flood-affected communities and decision-makers are necessary to address underlying vulnerabilities in social systems that exacerbate flooding. We identify an unequivocal need for EO to move beyond hazard mapping to post-flood recovery monitoring to inform recovery across geographic contexts. This commentary proposes a framework to use EO to advance flood recovery monitoring, characterize inequitable recovery, redistribute resources to mitigate inequities, and support risk reduction of future floods.