Detailed damage assessment after the Haiti earthquake

Abstract

In the post crisis phase a much more detailed analysis can be done with higher accuracy and less pressure of time compared to the general situation assessment of the rapid mapping process directly after the crisis. In this investigation the analysis is concentrated on the urban area of the capital town of Port-au- Prince. In order to develop a service for detailed damage assessment, methods of (semi-)automatic change detection are used and compared, since up to now, damage information was mainly derived by visual interpretation. Any improvement in terms of accuracy and speed of analysis is of relevance to users in this context. The results of the different change detection algorithms achieved using the Haiti datasets are compared to each other and also to the database of the Haiti Action Plan for Reconstruction and Development (PDNA). The results are very promising although further improvements have to be made.