NH51E-1935
On the reliable use of satellite-derived surface water products for global flood monitoring
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Feyera A Hirpa1, Beatriz Revilla-Romero2, Jutta Thielen3, Peter Salamon1, Robert Brakenridge4, Florian Pappenberger5 and Tom de Groeve6, (1)Joint Research Center Ispra, Climate Risk Management Unit, Ispra, Italy, (2)Utrecht University, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht, Netherlands, (3)European Commission, ISPRA, Italy, (4)University of Colorado, CSDMS, Boulder, CO, United States, (5)European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, RG2, United Kingdom, (6)Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Abstract:
Early flood warning and real-time monitoring systems play a key role in flood risk reduction and disaster response management. To this end, real-time flood forecasting and satellite-based detection systems have been developed at global scale. However, due to the limited availability of up-to-date ground observations, the reliability of these systems for real-time applications have not been assessed in large parts of the globe. In this study, we performed comparative evaluations of the commonly used satellite-based global flood detections and operational flood forecasting system using 10 major flood cases reported over three years (2012-2014). Specially, we assessed the flood detection capabilities of the near real-time global flood maps from the Global Flood Detection System (GFDS), and from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the operational forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) for the major flood events recorded in global flood databases. We present the evaluation results of the global flood detection and forecasting systems in terms of correctly indicating the reported flood events and highlight the exiting limitations of each system. Finally, we propose possible ways forward to improve the reliability of large scale flood monitoring tools.
