Identifying floods and flood-affected paddy rice fields in Bangladesh based on Sentinel-1 imagery and Google Earth Engine

Abstract

Globally, flooding is the leading cause of natural disaster related deaths, especially in Bangladesh where approximately one third of national area gets flooded annually by overflowing rivers during the monsoon season, which drastically affects paddy rice agriculture and food security. However, existing studies on the pattern of floods and their impact on agriculture in Bangladesh are limited. Here we examined the spatiotemporal pattern of floods for the country during 2014–2018 using all the available Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. We also identified the flood-affected paddy rice fields by integrating the flooding areas and remote sensing-based paddy rice planting areas. Our results indicate that flooding is frequent in northeastern Bangladesh and along the three major rivers, the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna. Between 2014 and 2018, the flood-affected paddy rice areas accounted for 1.61–18.17% of the total paddy rice area. The satellite-based detection of floods and flood-affected paddy rice fields advance our understanding of the annual dynamics of flooding in Bangladesh, which is essential for adaptation and mitigation strategies where severe annual floods threaten human lives, properties, and agricultural production.