Disaster detection and damage estimation using satellite imagery and land-use information

The Shihmen Reservoir is one of the largest and most important reservoirs in Taiwan. Frequent natural disasters, such as typhoons and earthquakes, have caused serious damages to the watershed. Typically, the landslides caused by heavy rainfall or earthquakes in the watershed destroy the road systems, slope-land, orchards, and even buildings. Traditional aerial surveying and in-situ measuring are subject to terrain barrier that makes damage estimation impractical. The satellite remote sensing technique is a good alternative since it acquires images frequently thus provides damage information efficiently. The integration of satellite images and relevant geospatial data, such as land-use maps and terrain models, provides a good solution for damage estimation. The spatial relationship between the damage and the land-use type can thus be analyzed. We will demonstrate a damage estimation procedure using SPOT satellite images and land-use data of the watershed, which encountered a major typhoon in the year of 2004.