Road assessment after flood events using non-authoritative data

Abstract

This research proposes a methodology that leverages non-authoritative data to augment flood extent mapping and the evaluation of transportation infrastructure. The novelty of this approach is the application of freely available, non-authoritative data and its integration with established data and methods. Crowdsourced photos and volunteered geographic data are fused together using a geostatistical interpolation to create an estimation of flood damage in New York City following Hurricane Sandy. This damage assessment is utilized to augment an authoritative storm surge map as well as to create a road damage map for the affected region. © Author(s) 2014.