Earth Observation (EO) for Flood and Drought monitoring using cloud resources and online processing…

Floods and droughts are among the world’s most devastating disasters. Timely spatial information on such events may reduce their impact, and analysing past events can assist in effective prevention and mitigation.

You will be introduced to opportunities for monitoring floods and drought using analysis-ready EO images and products and open and online source tools for subsequent analysis. The course starts with an overview of the various operational EO satellite Data and Information Access Services (DIAS) – catalogues, through which satellite products are made freely available to the public. This is followed by an overview of the physical processes underlying droughts and floods along with an introduction to state-of-the-art relevant EO products. Subsequently, remote sensed based individual water balance components (like precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and water level) are treated by accessing EO data from online catalogues using programming tools allowing cloud-based data processing, analyses and data download. The end of the course incorporates the EO retrievals into studies of water balance components, including tools of hydro-GIS like geometric delineation from Digital Elevation Models (DEM) and water modelling approaches. Finally, an assignment on a topic of interest, applying the knowledge gained and tools introduced, will complete the course.