Description

When rainfall intensity exceeds infiltration capacity for a longer period on agricultural fields without surface runoff, temporary ponding occurs, that may damage crops. The research aims at integrating radar and optical (Sentinel-1&2, L8, SPOT, etc.) images for monitoring the inundations at a regional scale. The method should be automated as much as possible, to be able to cover areas of several 10000 km2 with a time step of 2-3 days with the highes possible spatial resolution. The challenge has different aspects, i.e., finding the optimal compromise between the different spatial resolutions of the data, eliminating the speckle without losing the spatial details, considering the differences in vegetation/crop cover of the inundated areas, etc.
The research preferably requires cloud-based solutions for the processing of big data.

Objectives and Methodology

Develop method for createing time series of inundation maps with the integration of optical and radar satellite images.

Further reading

Antecedent MSc research: Yun Qiu (2017) and Anita Khadka (2019).