Evaluating the Extraction Approaches of Flood Extended Area by Using ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 Images as a Rapid Response to Flood Disaster

Abstract

Flash floods are recurrent events around the Japan region almost every year. Torrential rain occurred around Kanto and Tohoku area due to typhoon No. 18 in September 2015. Overflowing of the Kinugawa River led to river bank collapse. Thus, the flood extended into Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 was the fastest satellite to record this flood disaster area. A quick method to extract the flood inundation area by utilizing the ALOS-2/ PALSAR-2 image as a rapid response to the flood disaster is required. This study evaluated three methods to extract the flood immediately after the flood occurring. This study compared the extraction approaches of flooded area by unsupervised classification, supervised classification and binary/threshold of backscattering value of flood. The results show that unsupervised classification and supervised classification are overestimated. This study recommends the binarization of the backscattering value to extract the extended flood area. This method is a straight forward approach and generates a similar distribution with the field survey by using the aerial photo with high accuracy (94% of kappa coefficient). We utilized slope map which derived from DEM data to eliminate the overestimated area due to shadowing effect in SAR images.