River inundation impact reduction based on space technology application

Flood and as an impact of inundation is the natural event. It mainly occurs when the river catchment, (that is the area of land that feeds water into the river and the streams that flow into the main river) receives greater than usual amounts of water (for example through rainfall or melting snow). The river can not cope and this extra water causes the level of the water in the river to rise and a flood to take place. This flooding may take place at any point along the river course and not necessarily at the place where the extra water has entered. The Kura river is the largest river of Azerbaijan. It stretches for 1,515 kilometers and covers an area of 188 thousand sq. km. The Kura originates from the Hel River in Turkey, passes through Georgia and Azerbaijan and flows into the Caspian Sea in southeastern part of the country. Achievements in information systems, satellites imaging systems and improved software technologies have led to opportunities for a new level of information products from remote sensed data. The integration of these new products into existing response systems can provide a wide range of analysis tools and information products on the base of developed geographical information system (GIS). Using the higher resolution of space imagery and change detection analysis natural disaster awareness and damage assessment can be conducted rapidly and accurately. On the base of the developed database using the remote sensing methods and GIS technology there is resources and opportunities of prediction, reduction of natural risk due to the timely implementation of appropriate engineering and technological activities. The results of the carried out project "Application of Remote Sensing and GIS Technology to Reduce Flood Risk" is concerned to the high technology application. It is important to note that the space technology, project development approach used for the project implementation are very useful issues which definitely will be find out a place in our- future activities for the similar problem solving. For this project implementation purposes multichannel ALOS space image was used with spatial resolution of 10 m. With the rapid development of tools such as Remote Sensing methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies bridging gaps between data gathering, modeling, and flood prediction is becoming more feasible. Conventional modeling approaches using Remote Sensing and GIS technologies have been of limited value in the floodplains of the Kura River basin. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are either not available or too coarse to adequately capture subtle variations in flooding topography important in characterizing the spatial variability of the hydro period regime. Consequently, DEM-based models have been developed to represent floodplain geomorphology in this particular region. Additionally, analyses using Remotely Sensed imagery have been also scarce for the area. In spite of the limitations regarding data quality and availability, this analysis evaluates the sensitivity of a DEM-based surface and a Landsat ETM image for characterizing flood inundation through statistical tests involving comparison for flood levels using a flood characterization derived from geomorphology and soils maps created by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Agriculture. To help to evaluate each method\´s sensitivity tested the hypothesis there is no significant relationship between potential flood inundation areas obtained from geomorphology and soil maps and potential inundation zones determined with the aid of a DEM-based surface and a Landsat ETM satellite image. It should be acknowledged that this study principally focuses on the determination of inundated areas by mapping potential flood inundation zones by overlying data layers; the main advantage of this method is the possibility of application over large areas and of a rapid zonation and identification. It lacks of a high degree of accuracy.