Improved flood mapping for efficient policy design by fusion of
  Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and Landsat-9 imagery to identify population and
  infrastructure exposed to floods
Usman Nazir Muhammad Ahmad Waseem Falak Sher Khan Rabia Saeed Syed Muhammad Hasan Momin Uppal Zubair Khalid
A reliable yet inexpensive tool for the estimation of flood water spread is
conducive for efficient disaster management. The application of optical and SAR
imagery in tandem provides a means of extended availability and enhanced
reliability of flood mapping. We propose a methodology to merge these two types
of imagery into a common data space and demonstrate its use in the
identification of affected populations and infrastructure for the 2022 floods
in Pakistan. The merging of optical and SAR data provides us with improved
observations in cloud-prone regions; that is then used to gain additional
insights into flood mapping applications. The use of open source datasets from
WorldPop and OSM for population and roads respectively makes the exercise
globally replicable. The integration of flood maps with spatial data on
population and infrastructure facilitates informed policy design. We have shown
that within the top five flood-affected districts in Sindh province, Pakistan,
the affected population accounts for 31 %, while the length of affected roads
measures 1410.25 km out of a total of 7537.96 km.