Annual Flood Monitoring Using Synchronized Floodwater Index In 2010 Indus River Flood

Flood detection algorithms are able to generate near real-time flood proxy maps on regional and global scales on a daily basis through the use of multiple spaceborne sensors. In this chapter, we introduce a new algorithm for detecting annual floodwater changes using a hybrid conditional process that is incorporated into the Synchronized Multiple-Floodwater Index (SfWI2), a threshold-based statistical flood detection approach, coupled with in situ hydrological data. SfWI2 was applied to the 2010 Indus flood event, a recent extreme flood case, in order to achieve more accurate flood detection at a transboundary river-basin level and an effective emergency response in the early stage of a flood disaster. The resultant flood map shows good agreement between the MODIS-derived flood proxy map and high-resolution satellite images at the representative barrage stations.