Remote sensing to support a crisis information system: Mozambique rapid flood mapping system, River Elbe Flood: Germany 2002

Abstract

One of the challenges of remote sensing is the derivation of thematic relevant information for operational applications. All over the world, there is a need to get near real time information for crisis areas or catastrophic events. Part of this information can be provided by satellite data. This paper shows how to use several earth observation systems to derive crisis relevant information and to integrate them into geographical information systems (GIS). Before establishing a GIS and implement the satellite interpretation, it is very important to get the user requirements. As application examples two regions are given, first Mozambique, where a near real time response system using satellite information to derive the flood extend was developed and second Germany, where the Elbe flood disaster in August 2002 caused heavy damages for several thousand km². In addition the in-field utilization of the prepared and derived data as a mobile GIS is demonstrated.