Application of the damage detection method using SAR intensity images to recent earthquakes

One of the remarkable characteristics of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is to record physical value called the backscattering coefficient of the Earth´s surface not depending on weather conditions and Sun illumination. Therefore, SAR could be a powerful tool and be used to develop a universal method for grasping damaged areas by disasters such as earthquakes, forest fires and floods. Detailed ground truth data for building damage due to the 1995 Kobe earthquake provided us the opportunity to investigate the relationship between the backscattering property from SAR images and the degree of damage. From the above analysis we have already developed a method to detect areas of building damage. In this paper, we applied this method to the images taken over the area hit by the 1999 Kocaeli, Turkey and the 2001 Gujarat, India earthquakes, and then the accuracy of the proposed method was examined by comparing the results of the analyses with those from the damage surveys.