Applications of remotely sensed data in flood prediction and monitoring: report of the CEOS Disaster Management Support Group flood team

The potential of high and low resolution polar and geostationary orbital Earth Resource Satellites have been shown to be an excellent tool for providing hydrological information. Operational geostationary meteorological satellites have the capability to provide precipitation estimates and soil wetness indices at the global scale, while polar orbital satellites can provide the quantification of catchment physical characteristics, such as topography and land use, and catchment variables such as soil moisture and snow cover. There have been many demonstrations of the operational use of these satellites for detailed monitoring and mapping of floods and post-flood damage assessment. This paper addresses the use of Earth Observation satellites for flood managers, flash flood analysis and prediction, and the user community. A remote sensing management cycle is presented that involves: (1) prevention where history, corporate memory, and climatology are important; (2) mitigation that insulates people or infrastructure from hazards; (3) pre-flood which is the preparation and forecast stage where remote sensing is essential; (4) response (during the flood) where "actions to be taken is of key importance and weather NOWCASTS (0-3 hour prediction of precipitation) using remote sensing is extremely useful; and (5) recovery (post flood) which is the post-mortem stage where damage assessment, procedures, and numerical weather prediction and hydrological models are validated. Gaps in our remote sensing capabilities, future improvements and requirements, and the requirement for demonstration projects to illustrate and educate the end-user community on the capabilities of satellite remotely sensed data to provide information during all of the phases of the disaster cycle are discussed.