Final Report Remote Sensing for Post Disaster Management of Freight Transportation Networks Shahram Pezeshk, Ph.D., P.E Gregory Taff, Ph.D. Charles V. Camp, Ph.D. and Mathew J. Bolton, Graduate Student ABSTRACT • ii ABSTRACT • ii ABSTRACT In the event of a natural disaster, assessing the status of our transportation network and repairing it is of critical importance to recovery efforts. We must also consider terrorist attacks worldwide in terms of infrastructure integrity assessment and recovery. Major roadways, if damaged at key locations, can be rendered useless for commercial traffic and more importantly, for emergency response and law enforcement vehicles. The delay or inability to answer emergency calls can lead to the loss of numer- ous lives. With the use of several geographic techniques and tools, these dangers can be minimized. This report documents the test of developing a method of research utilizing remote sensing tech- niques to detect damage to road bridges. Through using derived pixel data and algorithms, pre- and post- earthquake images are compared to identify difference in the pixels’ brightness values (BV’s). With these techniques we can develop an expedient assessment of the transportation infrastructure’s integrity throughout Shelby County, Tennessee if it were to play host to one of these disastrous evens. These techniques could be implemented throughout the rest of the world. This research develops methodology for damage detection for a possible future event. Our goal was to test these methods of bridges change detection on an area for which we have data on the integrity of multiple bridges (damaged or not), and high spatial resolution imagery of both before and after an earthquake. We developed two methods, the Taff Method and the Hybrid Method, and found the Taff Method to give poor results and the Hybrid Method to give quite good results. In addition, we digi- tized coordinates of the outlines of bridges in Shelby County with high accuracy to expedite this anal- ysis in Shelby County in the event of an earthquake or other disaster that may affect integrity of bridges throughout the County. ABSTRACT • i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research is a result of a funded project from The University of Memphis Center for Intermodal Freight Transportation Studies (CIFTS) between the Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences. The authors would like to acknowledge the U.S. Geological Survey for facilitating access to commercial and government satellite imagery for the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake which was made available through activation of the International Charter – Space and Major Disasters. Further ac- knowledgement is given to the “Sichuan Earthquake Data Consortium” that purchased additional im- agery on the earthquake on behalf of the participants of the Consortium. This research would not have had the essential ground-truthing data without the combined efforts of MicroSoft, EPICentre, Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT), and ImageCat, Inc. Their team was able to travel to our Area of Interest (AOI) in 2008 shortly after the massive earth- quake that devastated the Chinese countryside. The team made available locations of damaged bridges and the types of damage to the bridges, i.e. cosmetic or structural. This information was re- trievable through the Virtual Disaster View, an online geographic information systems (GIS) tool de- veloped for disaster cataloging purposes. We would also like to recognize the work done by the Tennessee Department of Transportation Structure Inventory and Appraisal Office. The Structure Inventory and Appraisal Office was kind enough to assist with our research by letting us have their data on all the bridges in Shelby County, TN. The data included information on bridge features, most importantly, the bridge coordinates. This data will be used for future application of our research methods. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • ii CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................................... ii CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................................................................... iii INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................................. 1 Summary of Current State of Practice in Remote Sensing Damage Detection ................................................................ 2 ImageCat Report Summary .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Memphis Earthquake Scenario and Likely Bridge Damage ............................................................................................ 4 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................................. 7 METHODS IMPLEMENTED .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Taff Method ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Hybrid Method .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 RESULTS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 16 REDARS2 Introduction, Implementation, and Testing ................................................................................................ 17 DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................................................... 27 LIMITATIONS ................................................................................................................................................................. 28 NOTES .............................................................................................................................................................................. 29 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................................. 30 CONTENTS • iii INTRODUCTION In extreme circumstances, such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks, the functionality of key in- frastructure components, such as road bridges, is critical. Bridges become bottlenecks or gaps in transit when not functioning correctly. Damage to these components can influence our ability to continue commercial shipping or to supply aid to those who are in need of emergency response or law enforcement personnel, which can lead to undue loss of life. For example, the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in California collapsed the Cypress Street Viaduct claiming 42 lives and the I- 80 Oakland Bay Bridge claiming 1 life (Figure 1a and Figure 1b), and the Queen Isabella Cause- way in Texas collapsed due to a barge collision in 2001 claiming 8 lives (Figure 1c). These col- lapsed bridges were part of a more important transportation network. The Cypress bridge was destroyed completely and was finally rebuilt at the cost of 1.25 billion (Windmiller, 1999) dollars and reopened in 1997, nine years after the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Cypress Street Bridge was critically important to the Bay area’s road network because it connected what was then the US-40/ SR-17 traffic to the Oakland Bay Bridge. The Queen Isabel- la Causeway was the only connecting roadway from South Padre Island to Texas. The estimated cost to fix the bridge was 5 million dollars, not including the cost of the ferries used in the mean time or the cost of convenience (TxDOT Public Information Office, 2002). (a) Cypress Street Viaduct (b) Oakland Bay Bridge (c) Queen Isabella Causeway Figure 1. Bridge failures and collapses claiming lives and disrupting infrastructural systems. Images taken from Wikipedia; original sources: PD-USGOV- INTERIOR-USGS (Images a and b), and the U.S. Coast Guard Visual In- formation Server (Image c). Shelby County has the 19th largest metropolitan city by population density (Memphis) according to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau’s census (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008). Of course, these data do not account for all of the people who travel through the city, by the interstate or connect with other INTRODUCTION • 1 flights in through Memphis International Airport. Shelby County also sits on top of the New Madrid seismic zone. Those two facts coupled together create a situation for which we must be prepared with appropriate knowledge and tools. Consider the damage and chaos that resulted after Hurri- cane Katrina, and the fact that New Orleans is only the 59th largest city by population according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about half