Event Postponed: NRCAN Webinar: Optical Remote Sensing for Urban Flood Mapping and Risk Analysis with Dr. Ying Zhang

This event has been postponed until later in the year. We will post updates on this event page.

As results of rapid urbanization and climate change, both frequency and risk of flood disaster have been increased in urbanized areas where the disasters have usually costlier impacts than in rural areas. Imagery data and technologies of optical remote sensing are helpful and can be applied for urban flood response and pre-disaster preparation. Especially high and very high optical remote sensing can be used for precise mapping of the floodwater distribution in dense built-up areas and providing key information for disaster response management. In addition, the geospatial information about urban land surface and urban growth derived from optical remote sensing imagery can be the key inputs for urban flood risk analyses.

In recent years, several research works on Canadian urban flood cases with different types, including fluvial (Calgary 2013) and pluvial (the Greater Toronto Area) floods, were initialized at Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Natural Resources Canada, and have progressed in collaborations with the City of Calgary, Waterloo University, York University and University of Western Ontario. Methodologies and frameworks for automated mapping of urban floodwater were developed based on high resolution optical data, as well as the impacts of urban land growth on urban flash flood risks were investigated using model simulations with remote sensing derived maps as inputs. This presentation will demonstrate results from these case studies and introduce remote-sensing-based strategies and methodologies that are effective respectively for different types of urban floods.