March 20, 2014

Image Caption: In the spring of 2011, heavy rains and snow pack resulted in record releases from dams in Montana and the Dakotas, and near-record flooding along parts of the Missouri River. One especially hard-hit community was Hamburg, Iowa, where levee failure in early June caused extensive flooding and the evacuation of many homes. By late June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had rebuilt the levees and Hamburg was protected from additional flooding. The left image, acquired on Sept. 24, 2010, was taken by the Thematic Mapper sensor aboard Landsat 5. The right image, acquired on Aug. 2, 2011, was taken by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus on Landsat 7. Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior/USGS, NASA

NASA

Flooding is the most frequent and widespread weather-related natural disaster, taking a huge toll in lives and property each year. NASA Earth-observing satellites and airborne missions provide vital information to emergency planners, relief organizations and weather forecasters, helping to improve flood monitoring and forecasting, as well as providing a more comprehensive understanding of one of Mother Natures most damaging hazards.

NASAs Earth-observing satellites provide detailed images of flood-affected areas, which are vital for mapping flood extent. For instance, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASAs Terra and Aqua satellites monitor a broad area of our planet, providing visible-light imagery, infrared information and other types of data on a daily basis to scientists and emergency managers. The Landsat satellites in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey provide even higher-resolution imagery, which can be used to map Earths land surfaces before and after disasters. Landsat serves as an essential tool for assessing flood risk and mapping the extent of damage for post-disaster recovery. Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) is an advanced land-imaging mission that includes three advanced land imaging instruments and five revolutionary cross cutting spacecraft technologies.

The United Nations World Food Programme, which delivers food relief to inundated areas, uses NASA Earth science satellite-based flood maps to locate floods and map delivery routes to affected areas. Contractors with the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also use Landsat imagery to track urban development, which can affect an areas flood risk.

These maps, which reveal the extent and duration of a flood, also allow for more accurate flood forecasting models. By mapping floods, we can model where future floods will be, said Bob Brakenridge, director of the Flood Observatory at the University of Colorado, Boulder, which has documented flooding events worldwide over the past 14 years. If an area floods year after year, then scientists can predict the likelihood and severity of flooding in surrounding lands.

NASA satellites also provide precipitation measurements, which play an important role in flood monitoring. If you can see very high rainfall rates in certain regions, that can feed into [flooding] models, said Eric Wood, a hydrologist at Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. Data from NASAs Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, known as TRMM, allow scientists to model surface runoff and river discharge, helping predict floods and landslides.

In late February, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) missions Core Observatory, which will provide unprecedented data on rain and snowfall and significantly contribute to flooding research. GPM will allow scientists to estimate the sizes of precipitation particles and detect a large range of precipitation rates. GPM will go a long way with improving the accuracy of rainfall measurements, said Wood.

The GPM Core Observatory will collect information that unifies and improves data from an international constellation of existing and future satellites by mapping global precipitation every three hours.

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NASA Helps Improve Flood Safety When Waters Rise