Use of Sentinel-1 Data in Flood Mapping in the Buna River Area

Abstract

Floods are one of the disasters that cause many human lives and property. In Albania, most floods are associated with periods of heavy rainfall. In recent years, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors, which provide reliable data in all weather conditions and day and night, have been favored because they eliminate the limitations of optical images. In this study, a flood occurred in the Buna River region in March 2018, was mapped using SAR Sentinel-1 data. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of flood mapping using SAR images using different methodologies. Sentinel-1A / B SAR images of the study area were obtained from the European Space Agency (ESA). Preprocessing steps, which include trajectory correction, calibration, speckle filtering, and terrain correction, have been applied to the images. RGB composition and the calibrated threshold technique have been applied to SAR images to detect flooded areas and the results are discussed here.