SPACE BASED MAPS IN SUPPORT OF DISASTER MANAGEMENT ACTIONS IN

I. F. Dana a, *, A. Badea a, C. Moise a, V. G. Olteanu a, A. Irimescu b

a Romanian Space Agency, 010362, Bucharest, Romania – (iulia.dana, alexandru.badea, cristian.moise, vlad.olteanu)@rosa.ro b National Meteorological Administration, 013686, Bucharest, Romania – [email protected]

Commission VII, WG VII/2

KEY WORDS: Floods, Satellite Imagery, Disaster Management, Emergency Response Service, Space-based Maps

ABSTRACT:

Romania has been affected by floods many times in the recent past that caused loss of lives and important property damages. In the last years (since 2005), the monitoring of the flooded regions was performed using archive and newly acquired remote sensing satellite data and vector databases. Most frequently, these recent floods occurred along the watercourse of the , and rivers. With the support of the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" or the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security Emergency Response Service (GMES ERS), the disaster extent and damage assessment were delineated on satellite imagery or satellite based products. The International Charter activations were managed by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in 2005 and 2008 in close collaboration with Service Régional de Traitement d'Image et de Télédétection (SERTIT) and by the Deutsche Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) in 2006 in cooperation with Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI). GMES ERS was triggered in the framework of the SAFER project, during the floods that occurred in 2010. Also, Romanian Space Agency, as Regional Support Office, provided expertise in case of the floods that affected Republic of in 2010, through the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER). This paper presents the satellite imagery processing steps, the obtained satellite based products, the strengths and weaknesses of the emergency response services, and the user requirements, based on the experience gathered within the crisis situations.

1. INTRODUCTION risk maps by 2013, and flood risk management plans by 2015 (Strategy, 2010). The most consistent floods are taking place in Presently, floods represent 60% of the world's natural disasters. the Siret and Prut basins or in the lower plain of Danube The scientific studies show that, in the future, global climate (including the too). In 2005, floods affected the changes might even accentuate this phenomenon (Niculescu et Siret basin, and according to the official reports at least 15 al., 2010). Europe is also facing severe floods almost every people have been killed. The Home Secretary has reported that year. In order to reduce the catastrophic effects of the floods, more than 12,000 people have been evacuated from their homes the European Commission (EC) decided to establish the due to the floods which have been affecting the country as a European Flood Alert System (EFAS) that is developed by the result of torrential rain. The 2006, snowmelt and long lasting Joint Research Center together with national flood forecasting rainfalls led to a dramatic increase of water levels at the Danube centers in the member states and several meteorological River to values which were never measured before. More than services. EFAS provides not only flood warning information 4,700 people had to be evacuated from the flooded regions, (covering up to 10 days in advance) but it also offers useful 3,000 of them only in the Rast village in the southwest of the information for disaster management during the ongoing flood country. After a dam could no longer withstand the pressure by events (EFAS, 2005). Another initiative intended to diminish the water, 600 buildings were flooded, from which 115 flood effects is the Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and collapsed. 40,000 hectares of land were covered by the flooding. management of flood risks. The main objective of the Directive Also, the Danube Delta was severely affected during this flood is to reduce and manage the risks that floods represent to event. In 2008, the floods occurred again in the Siret basin and humans, environment, cultural heritage and economic activity along the Prut River. Thousands of people were evacuated in (Directive, 2007). northeastern Romania after heavy rains caused massive flooding that swept away homes, cut off electricity and damaged roads. In Romania, according to the published statistics, there are over At least 4 people died. In 2010, heavy rainfalls unleashed floods one million hectares of floodplain and more than 900,000 in northern and eastern Romania. Floods took place mainly people living in areas with high risk of flooding, while more along the Siret and Danube rivers. Unfortunately, the Danube than 88,000 households could be flooded at any time. In Delta was severely affected again. Numerous people were average, 8 people lose their lives annually and damages are reported dead and hundreds had to be evacuated from their considerable. For example, the major floods from 2005 homes. Several roads and hundreds of hectares of farmland produced material damages equivalent with 1.66 Mio € (almost were flooded, dozens of houses destroyed and several bridges 0.6% GDP). The Romanian National Strategy for Flood Risk damaged. The above-mentioned floods were monitored using Management deals with flood prevention, protection, space technologies, with the support of the International Charter preparedness, emergency situations management, assistance, Space and Major Disasters or the help of Global Monitoring for and reconstruction. Preliminary flood risk assessment will be Environment and Security Emergency Response Service finalized at the end of 2011, the flood hazard maps and flood (GMES ERS).

2. EMERGENCY RESPONSE SERVICES At national level, GMES ERS was triggered in the framework of the SAFER project, during the floods that occurred in 2010 2.1 International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" on the Siret, Danube and Prut rivers. The service was activated by the local focal point, represented by the Romanian Space The International Charter aims at providing a unified system of Agency (ROSA). The space-based maps were executed in close space data acquisition and delivery to those affected by natural collaboration with ZKI/DLR. or man-made disasters. Presently, the International Charter has more than 10 years of activity and more than 300 activations in 2.3 United Nations Platform for Space-based Information case of different emergency situations (cyclones, earthquakes, for Disaster Management and Emergency Response fires, floods, landslides, oil spill, tsunamis, etc.) that occurred in nearly 100 countries. The members of the International Charter The United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for are space agencies and space system operators (Charter, 2000). Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) In case of a disaster situation, the authorized user contacts the is a programme that has the following mission: "Ensure that all on-duty operator informing him about the event. Further on, the countries and international and regional organizations have on-duty operator contacts the emergency on-call officer that access to and develop the capacity to use all types of space- submits request for new or archive satellite images and assigns a based information to support the full disaster management project manager for this call. The members of the Charter cycle". The UN-SPIDER initiative represents a gateway to provide the remote sensing satellite data and send it to the space information for disaster management support. Also, UN- designed value-added reseller that has as responsibility to SPIDER focuses on institutional strengthening and capacity- process the data and deliver the satellite images and space-based building (UN-SPIDER, 2010). The programme has several products to the end user. permanent offices and it coordinates a network of Regional Support Offices (RSOs). The UN-SPIDER RSO in Romania is The International Charter was triggered several times for hosted by the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA). At national Romania during flood events. In 2005 and 2008 the project level, ROSA coordinates three specialised entities: Romanian manager was represented by Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales Centre for Remote Sensing Applied in Agriculture (CRUTA), (CNES), while Service Régional de Traitement d'Image et de National Meteorological Administration (ANM) and Faculty of Télédétection (SERTIT) was the value-added reseller. The Land Reclamation and Environmental Engineering, University management of the project was provided by the Deutsche of Agronomic Science and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) in cooperation with (USAMV-FIFIM). The Romanian RSO offered assistance and Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI/DLR) as expertise during the floods that affected Republic of Moldova in value-added reseller, in 2006. 2010. A large number of settlements were affected. According to the preliminary data received from Emergency Service 2.2 Global Monitoring for Environment and Security – Centre of Moldova, the average number of disaster-affected Emergency Response Service residencies in the regions was about 600 houses and over 2,000 people have been evacuated. Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is the European Earth monitoring programme, which is coordinated and managed by EC. GMES services cover the following areas: 3. METHODOLGY land, marine and atmosphere monitoring, security, climate change, and emergency management (GMES, 2008). The 3.1 Data Flow European Response Service (ERS) aims at developing a European information service based on Earth Observation and The International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" provides in-situ data. The space segment will be covered in the future by both raw satellite imagery and space-based products. In the case the Sentinel missions. The European Space Agency (ESA) is in of Romania, the satellite images have to be reprojected into the charge of the space component while the in-situ component is national reference grid, namely Stereographic 1970. The water managed by the European Environment Agency (EEA). mask can be extracted from satellite imagery either manually (using visual photointerpretation) or semi-automatically (by ERS disaster risk management is a cyclic activity with three applying different image classification algorithms, followed by major phases: preparedness/prevention (geographic reference the visual check of the results). maps, pre-disaster situation maps), emergency response (disaster extent, damage assessment), and recovery (post- In order to obtain a more accurate result, the water mask is disaster situation maps). Presently, just two of the three major further processed by integrating elevation data. The elevation ERS phases are operational, namely preparedness/prevention data is generated based on the contour lines of the available and emergency response. In the future, the recovery phase will topographic maps or preferably using an accurate and updated be also available. The pre-operational phase of ERS is funded digital elevation model (DEM), characterised by an adequate by the European Union in the framework of the Services and spatial resolution. The DEM may be derived from optical or Applications for Emergency Response (SAFER) project that is synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data, using stereo- in charge of developing space based geo-information products photogrammetric or interferometric techniques (Dana et al., in order to strengthen European capacities in response to 2008a; Dana et al., 2010). Also, the digital geomorphological emergency situations. ERS will be fully operational in 2014. map can be used as ancillary data (Badea et al., 2008a; Moise Similar to the International Charter, GMES ERS can be et. al, 2009). Next, the flood thematic maps are created in a activated in case of crisis situations that occur in any part of the Geographic Information System (GIS). Different GIS thematic world (GMES ERS, 2010). Also, the triggering of the service information layers are added to the flood map: the boundaries of can be performed only through authorised users (national focal the administrative units, places, geographical names (Romanian points) and using the GMES ERS SAFER toolbox. The role of a diacritics), land use/land cover, roads, etc. Evidently, the national focal point is to correctly identifying the needs and compliance of the topology rules is checked. The land cover requirements of the national user community. information is essential for the evaluation of the areas affected

by floods (Badea, 2005; Badea et al., 2008b). A clear overview of the disaster extent per each land use/land cover class is given. The land cover information is extracted from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations - Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) database (© ROSA, CRUTA) for medium-scale assessments (Mamulea and Dana, 2008; Olteanu et al., 2009) and from the Integrated Administration and Control System/Land Parcel Identification System (IACS/LPIS) database (© Paying and Intervention Agency for Agriculture - APIA) for a detailed analysis. In some cases, for a more comprehensive analysis of the affected areas, the GIS layers, including the water mask with the delineated land cover classes, are overlaid on other raster layers, such as topographic maps (© National Institute of Research and Development for Land Reclamation "INCDIF-ISPIF" Bucharest), aerial orthophotos (© Figure 1. Flood map Nanesti (Siret River), 2005 National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration - ANCPI) © CNES 2005, © SERTIT 2005; Charter call ID 98 or higher spatial resolution satellite imagery.

GMES ERS provides space-based products. Raw satellite images can be obtained only through special requests. In this case, the projection of the water mask into the national grid is added to the processing chain and is realised by the value-added responsible. Next, the reprojected water mask is thoroughly edited in order to eliminate its artefacts inherent to the automatic extraction. These artefacts are caused by the lack of information regarding the geographical characteristics of the affected territory. Thus, the shadowed areas may be interpreted as flooding or areas covered by permanent water bodies which does not represent the effect of the disaster. For this reason the local processing team has to correct the errors of the water mask provided by the emergency response service, by comparison Figure 2. Flood map Piscu (Siret River), 2005 with the national raster and vector thematic geodatabase. © CNES 2005, © SERTIT 2005; Charter call ID 98 Further on, the data flow remains mainly the same. Over time (2005-2010), the processing steps were adapted for a wide range of optical and radar satellite imagery.

3.2 Space-based Maps

All the space-based maps that are produced locally using the satellite data or the water masks provided by the emergency response services are published on the website of the Romanian Space Agency.

Figure 1 illustrates the extent of the flooding that occurred in the Siret basin, in 2005 (RO Floods, 2005; Badea, 2006). The map is covering the river section between Nanesti and Independenta. The background of the map is represented by a Figure 3. Flood map Rast (Danube River), 2006 SPOT 5 natural colours image, while the water extent is © ESA 2006, © ROSA, ANM; Charter call ID 121 extracted based on a SPOT 5 image (© CNES 2005, distribution

Spot Image). This overview map was created by SERTIT (© SERTIT 2005), on the 19th July 2005. Figure 2 represents a more detailed map, showing the flooding of the Piscu village. The very high resolution of the image allows the assessment of the damages at the level of the households. The map is very useful for intervention and rescue actions.

Figure 3 shows the extent of the floods that affected the Rast village, located near the Danube River (Badea et al., 2004; RO Floods, 2006; Badea et al., 2007). The reference image that was the source of the water mask was acquired by the ERS satellite (© ESA 2006), on the 19th April 2006. The derived water mask was overlaid on an archive Landsat image. The map was created by ROSA and ANM. In Figure 4, a SPOT-derived water mask (© SPOT Image 2006) was overlaid on a topographic map (© Figure 4. Flood map Rast (Danube River), 2006 Military Topographic Department - DTM). © SPOT Image 2006, © ROSA, ANM; Charter 121

The 2008 floods affected the areas along the Prut River (Dana et al., 2008b; RO Floods, 2008). In Figure 5, the flooded areas can be easily observed in the TerraSAR-X StripMap EEC image (© DLR/Infoterra 2008), acquired on the 27th July 2008. The interest area is located in the northern part of Romania. The floods are more consistent on the other side of the Prut River, in . The water mask extracted from the TerraSAR-X image was edited based on the contour lines of the corresponding topographic map at scale 1:5,000 (© "INCDIF-ISPIF"). Then, the edited water mask was intersected with the LCCS thematic layer (© ROSA, CRUTA). This process led to the evaluation of the areas affected by floods in the Radauti-Prut village, for each/land cover class (agricultural fields, permanent pasture, forest, bare area, built-up area), in hectares. This method was Figure 7. Flood map Nanesti (Siret River), 2010 created and used for the first time during the 2005 campaign, by © ZKI/DLR, © SPOT Image, © ROSA; GMES ERS the team of ROSA/CRUTA. Next, the water mask was overlaid over a mosaic of orthophotos (© ANCPI), with 0.5 m spatial resolution (Figure 6). The assessment of the flooded areas is very accurate because the water mask was edited using elevation data. In addition, the land cover database contained updated information. The map was created by ROSA in close collaboration with CRUTA and ANCPI.

Figure 8. Flood map Piscu (Siret River), 2010 © ZKI/DLR, © SPOT Image, © ROSA; GMES ERS

4. CONCLUSIONS

Figure 5. Flood map Radauti-Prut (Prut River), 2008 Satellite remote sensing data and its derived products (space- © DLR/Infoterra 2008, © ROSA; Charter call ID 212 based maps) are essential components in the management of emergency situations. The integration of ancillary data improves the quality and content of the disaster crisis maps offering the guarantee of the in situ collected basic information. The water mask derived by automatic means should be checked. For example, the geometric effects (especially shadow) of the radar images may be misinterpreted as flooded areas. The knowledge of the studied area, from the geographical point of view, is vital. The generated products are more accurate if 3D information (DEMs, contour lines) is integrated in the processing chain, for mask editing. Also, accurate and updated land use/land cover databases are important for the assessment of the flooded areas.

The International Charter has the advantage that it offers raw satellite data on which reference data can be added. Usually, the Figure 6. Flood map Radauti-Prut (Prut River), 2008 reference data is owned by the national authorities. Raw data is © DLR/Infoterra 2008, © ROSA; Charter call ID 212 extremely important for the elaboration of useful maps. Firstly, the satellite images can be re-projected into the national grid. In Figure 7 shows a section of the flooded areas along the Siret addition, the text information contained by the maps can be River (Irimescu et al., 2010, RO Floods, 2010). The water mask written in the mother tongue, therefore the legend is more was derived by ZKI/DLR based on a Radarsat-2 image acquired comprehensible and the maps are easier to use by the end user on the 3rd July 2010. The edited and corrected water mask was that is usually represented by the local authorities. Moreover, overlaid on a 2.5 m resolution, natural colour SPOT 5 image (© the toponyms can be written using the diacritics specific to the SPOT Image). In this case, the land cover information was national language. extracted both from the LCCS (© ROSA, CRUTA) and LPIS (© APIA) databases, thus the evaluation of the disaster extent The strengths of GMES ERS are given by the wider range of and damage assessment was achieved with higher accuracy. The products (pre-disaster, disaster, post-disaster) comparing to the map illustrated in Figure 8 was created using the same International Charter that can be activated only during a crisis procedure. The area affected by floods is represented by Piscu situation. The main advantage of GMES ERS is represented by village. The flood maps were elaborated by ROSA. the possibility to activate the service in the preparedness/

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors are grateful to the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Service Régional de Traitement d'Image et de Télédétection, Deutsche Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt, Global Monitoring for Environment and Security Emergency Response Service, Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information, United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response, with whom they have collaborated over time, in case of different flood events. Also, special thanks are going to the Romanian Space Agency, National Meteorological Administration and other national cooperating institutions.