Use of Remote Sensing in Detecting and Analyzing Natural Hazards and Disasters, 1972-1998: a Partially Annotated Bibliography
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The Use of Remote Sensing in Detecting and Analyzing Natural Hazards and Disasters, 1972-1998: A Partially Annotated Bibliography Compiled by Pamela S. Showalter1 and Matthew Ramspott2, with additional contributions by 3 4 Dave Morton , Linda Prosperie , and Louis Walter5 Published by The James and Marilyn Lovell Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research Department of Geography Southwest Texas State University (SWT) San Marcos, Texas 78666 Occasional Paper No. 1 June 1999 1- Assistant Professor, SWT; 2 - Masters student, SWT; 3 - Librarian, Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, University of Colorado, Boulder; 4 - Doctoral student, SWT; 5 -Research Professor, Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management, George Washington University Additional hard copies of this annotated bibliography are available at the cost of reproduction and shipping, which is currently $10.00 each (inside the US). Extra shipping costs for international orders will be assessed on an ―as ordered‖ basis (please contact the Lovell Center before placing international orders). Price increases due to changes in US postage rates may occur. For orders inside the US, checks or money orders should be made out to the Department of Geography and requests for the copies sent to: The James and Marilyn Lovell Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research 601 University Drive Department of Geography Southwest Texas State University San Marcos, Texas 78666 Please note that we cannot accept credit card orders or fill orders without receiving payment in advance. THE JAMES AND MARILYN LOVELL CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GEOGRAPHY AND HAZARDS RESEARCH Geography has always been about exploration and the environment. The pinnacle of scientific exploration in the 20th Century was NASA's Apollo program. On Apollo 8, Astronauts Lovell, Borman, and Anders showed all of humanity how truly fragile and precious the earth's environment is with their photograph of the "Blue Marble in Space," which remains one of the most enduring images of the Apollo program. During the Apollo 13 mission, Captain Lovell and his crew captured the attention of the entire world as they brought their crippled spacecraft back to earth, illustrating the type of courage and daring needed to explore unknown environments. The James and Marilyn Lovell Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research recognizes Jim Lovell as an inspiration for global exploration and environmental science and Marilyn Lovell for her unwavering support of her husband and his extraordinary vision. The Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research provides a focus for geographers with interests in Environmental Geography, and Natural and Technological Hazards. The Center provides a locus of scholarship and activity emphasizing the importance of understanding the Earth’s environment, analyzing and reducing the impacts of natural and technological hazards, and achieving sound policy formulation on these issues. Center activities include convening and sponsoring conferences on critical issues in the fields of environmental geography and hazards research; publishing plenary papers from such conferences in special issues of renowned international journals (the first such issue, the plenary papers of a Conference on Environmental Geography, will be published in the nationally recognized journal Physical Geography in 1999); serving as a clearing-house of information on environmental geography and hazards issues; offering research and office space, and an in-house library for the use of visiting scholars; and fostering the next generation of environmental geographers through the Department of Geography’s Ph.D. program in Environmental Geography. The Center also sponsors faculty and student luncheons within the department, providing opportunities for collegiality, talks by faculty or students, and discussion of issues that affect the Center. For more information, contact the Center at: 601 University Drive Department of Geography Southwest Texas State University San Marcos, Texas 78666 FAX: (512) 245-9140 or visit our website at: http://www.geo.swt.edu/lovell/center_front.html ii Lovell Center Scholars and Research Interests R. Denise Blanchard-Boehm (Ph.D. Colorado-Boulder, 1992): mitigation and preparedness behavior, recovery planning and policy as it relates to future disasters, and environmental hazards in Texas and the borderlands. David R. Butler (Ph.D. Kansas, 1982): landslides, snow avalanches as hazards, geomorphic hazards that have developed as a result of twentieth-century global warming, and the hazards produced by natural dam failures (e.g., landslide, avalanche, glacial, volcanic, and beaver). Richard Dixon (Ph.D. Texas A&M, 1996): weather and climate related hazards, identification of threshold values at which warnings need to be provided to communities. J. Ronald Eyton (Ph.D. University of Illinois-Urbana, 1974): environmental applications of remote sensing, digital terrain modeling, computer cartography, and quantitative methods. Robert Larsen (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1976): identification of waste sites and waste management, urban planning, application of GIS for mapping and delineating surface and subsurface hazard zones associated with waste sites in Texas. Susan Macey (Ph.D. University of Illinois-Urbana, 1982): human impact of natural hazards, use of geographic information systems (GIS) for environmental applications, spatial patterns and correlates of elderly heat and cold related mortality. Pamela S. Showalter (Ph.D. Colorado-Boulder, 1993): use of remote sensing in disaster research/analysis, ―na-tech‖ events, risk communication. David Stea (Ph.D. Stanford, 1964): applications of environmental cognition to environmental geography and environmental epidemiology in the U.S./Mexico Border region. John Tiefenbacher (Ph.D. Rutgers, 1992): spatial patterns of chemical contamination of the environment, air quality, and environmental problems along the U.S. - Mexico border. F. Benjamin Zhan (Ph.D. SUNY-Buffalo, 1994): utilization of GIS in waste management decision-making. TABLE OF CONTENTS The James and Marilyn Lovell Center for Environmental Geography and Hazards Research i Center Scholars and Research Interests ii Introduction 1 Description of Material Found in the Bibliography 1 An Invitation to Authors 2 The Use of Remote Sensing in Detecting and Analyzing Natural Hazards and Disasters, 1972-1998: A Partially Annotated Bibliography 6 List of Tables Table 1. Hazards and General Associated Utility of Remotely Sensed Data 3 Table 2. Hazards Addressed in this Bibliography 4 List of Figures Figure 1. Frequency with which Topics Addressed in Bibliography, as a Percent 5 Figure 2. Yearly Count of Articles Found in Bibliography 5 Appendices Appendix A. Publications Outlets Represented in Bibliography 97 Appendix B. Glossary of Acronyms 101 INTRODUCTION This partially annotated bibliography was created to demonstrate the extent to which satellite remote sensing has been used in disaster analysis and management. Satellite images can help detect and monitor geophysical hazards, predict or warn of impact, manage emergencies, and improve planning to reduce human vulnerability (Alexander 1991). Contrary to what laypeople may presume regarding satellite images and their use in a disaster context, obtaining real-time or near real-time imagery is not necessarily the goal for hazards analysis. Rather, the technology can help define areas of potential exposure to hazards as well as ways to prevent or mitigate the effects of those hazards. Therefore, the use of remote sensing in disaster mitigation, analysis, and planning is often a question of identifying change on the surface of the earth. Fortunately, because of the length of time Landsat has been in orbit (the first Landsat satellite was launched as ERTS-1 in 1972), there is a large body of image data available that can provide the temporal perspective necessary to perform change detection (Organization of American States 1991). The information contained herein can be used by scholars pursuing various avenues of research as well as by environmental managers who wish to familiarize themselves with the technology. The latter group "should have a working knowledge of remote sensing techniques and the capability to assess the validity of an interpretation, as well as the ability to use the derived information‖ (Organization of American States 1991, p. 4-4), whether or not they plan to personally perform image analysis. DESCRIPTION OF MATERIAL FOUND IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHY Generally, four types of satellite orbit the earth: communication, meteorological, remote sensing, and geophysical (Walter, 1989). This bibliography focuses on articles using commercial, terrestrial satellite remote sensing systems such as Landsat because imagery from such systems are increasingly used for research and are commercially available at a reasonable price. While articles describing the use of images from meteorological satellites (whose scale of imagery is usually too small for land management applications), radar (whose images non-specialists can find difficult to comprehend), and conventional photography are sometimes included, they have purposefully been kept to a minimum. The bibliography contains 405 references, 209 of which are annotated. Nearly all the articles were originally published in English. A list of the publications from which these references have been obtained can be found in Appendix A. Whenever possible,