Remote sensing and GIS techniques for natural disaster monitoring

Abstract

On 26 Dec 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Over 300,000 people lost their lives in this disaster. Areas near to the epicentre in Indonesia, especially Aceh, were devastated by the earthquake and tsunamis. The work was developed for the post emergency analysis in collaboration with European Space Agency-European Space Research Institute-(ESA-ESRIN) and the University of Rome-Centro Ricerca Progetto San Marco (CRPSM). Multi source and multi sensor data were used such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and, SPOT5,CHRIS/PROBA,QUICKBIRD images; a Geographic Information System (GIS) multi relational database was built and integrated with geophysical, topographic and hazard maps. A geo-statistical analysis was done to calculate the probability of changes. Different change detection algorithms were used. The active and passive remote sensing and GIS integration of the Tsunami affected area of Banda Aceh, were efficient instruments for evaluating and quantifying damages. The applied methodology showed how remote sensing techniques could be adopted for the quasi-real time and the post emergency operations. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.