MODIS-based multi-parametric platform for mapping of flood affected areas. Case study: 2006 Danube extreme flood in Romania

Abstract

Flooding remains the most widely distributed natural hazard in Europe, leading to significant economic and social impact. Earth observation data is presently capable of making fundamental contributions towards reducing the detrimental effects of extreme floods. Technological advance makes development of online services able to process high volumes of satellite data without the need of dedicated desktop software licenses possible. The main objective of the case study is to present and evaluate a methodology for mapping of flooded areas based on MODIS satellite images derived indices and using state-of-the-art geospatial web services. The methodology and the developed platform were tested with data for the historical flood event that affected the Danube floodplain in 2006 in Romania. The results proved that, despite the relative coarse resolution, MODIS data is very useful for mapping the development flooded area in large plain floods. Moreover it was shown, that the possibility to adapt and combine the existing global algorithms for flood detection to fit the local conditions is extremely important to obtain accurate results.

A Contemporary Systematic Review of Cyberinfrastructure Systems and Applications for Flood and Drought Data Analytics and Communication

“…Concurrently, digital watershed designs have emerged (Qiu et al, 2022), complemented by reservoir inundation mapping tools (Aekakkararungroj et al, 2020) and specialized Python utilities (Christensen et al, 2017). The embrace of crowd intelligence, notably via natural language processing of tweets (Donratanapat et al, 2020), has been enhanced through high-performance computing (Svatoň et al, 2018;Bottazzi et al, 2021) and satellite data analytics (Craciunescu et al, 2016). These integrated approaches have fortified estimations of natural hazards vulnerability (Rod et al, 2014;Erikson et al, 2018) and strategies for urban resilience (Villani et al, 2019).…”

The diachronic analysis of island dynamics along the Vedea-Oltenița Danube river sector using SAR imagery

“…Its maximum value was reached during the July 2005 flood, with 5,838 kg/s (Grecu et al 2010). The Danube flood of April-May 2006, the greatest flood event registered on the Romanian sector of Danube in the last 150 years as maximum stages as well as the longest duration of water stage over the inundation thresholds (Gan et al 2012;Craciunescu et al 2016), was characterized by a maximum discharge ranging from 16,100 to 16,500 m 3 /s between Giurgiu and Călăraşi (Grecu et al 2007;Grigorie 2013;Grecu 2016). During the flood of April-May 2006, the sediment load reached the highest value in the last 20 years, since the construction of the Iron Gates II dam (Constantinescu et al 2015).…”

Evaluating flood events caused by Medicane “Daniel” in the Thessaly District (Central Greece) using remote sensing data and techniques

“…Remote sensing (RS) techniques, particularly satellite imagery, provide a valuable source of information for mapping flooded surfaces with sufficient temporal and geographical resolutions; they offer accurate and continuous data to aid in disaster mitigation, especially for floods (Hrušková and Hlaváčiková, 2023). These observations cover vast and inaccessible areas, enabling the identification of bodies of water over extensive distances and facilitating crucial information for risk and damage assessments (Buta et al, 2020;Bioresita et al, 2019;Craciunescu et al, 2016;Psomiadis, 2016;Klemas, 2015). Sentinel-1 Synthertic Aperture Radar (SAR) images has been increasingly widespread for flood extent mapping in flood hazard studies as they provide accurate and high resolution results (Huang and Jin, 2020;Uddin et al, 2019) The Copernicus program of the European Space Agency (ESA) provides precise, timely, and freely accessible Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data of the Sentinel-1 satellite system.…”