Instructor

Dr. Anthony Vodacek
76/3104
475-7816
vodacek@cis.rit.edu

Floods

Radarsat image of a flood of the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, Canada.  Image from CCRS.

Flooding is the most common natural disaster
Causes of floods:
- heavy rain, rapid snow melt, regular spring flooding
- high tides
- very heavy rain on flat ground
- dam failures
- seiche/wind driven flooding in large lakes
- volcano melting of snow or glaciers

Uses of remote sensing:
- floodplain mapping
- flood loss potential
- extent of ongoing floods

Floodplains can be delineated relatively easily with human interpretation of airborne or satellite data
Visible data can be used to show preflood conditions, but clouds may make active monitoring of floods impossible with
visible data.  Radar provides all-weather capability for monitoring floods and a high contrast signal.

Link to the Dartmouth Flood Observatory

Link to the Earth Satellite Corporation Floodwatch homepage

Earthquakes

Uses of remote sensing:
- pre-earthquake fault mapping
- damage assessment
- post-earthquake fault movement
 

Volcanoes

AVHRR satellite image showing the eruption of Klyuchevskoi Volcano, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia on 30 September
1994. The infrared band (B2) image shows a cold eruption cloud blowing to the southeast from the summit of the volcano.
These images are used to monitor volcanoes in the north Pacific region.   Image provided by the Remote Sensing group of the
Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Link to the Michigan Tech volcano monitoring page
 

Landslides

Low altitude photographs for analysis of landslides caused by a construction project, from the Remote Sensing Research homepage