Experiences in optical and SAR imagery analysis for damage assessment in the Wuhan, may 2008 earthquake

The Sichuan Earthquake on the 12th of May 2008, and the extensive rescue operations following this tragic event, proved the value of high-resolution optical and radar remote sensing during the emergency response. Optical data provide a fast and simple way to value ¿at glance¿ damages while radar sensors can deliver images independent of weather conditions, day and night, and thus in principle can represent a mean to obtain a damage map in the immediate aftermath of an event, providing precious information for intervention planning. On the other hand, SAR data is far more difficult to interpret than optical data both to the expert and non-expert. In this paper we present a case study of damage assessment on the Sichuan earthquake experimenting the use of very high resolution data from both worlds, discussing preliminary results and perspectives.