Using Landsat 7 TM data acquired days after a flood event to delineate the maximum flood extent on a coastal floodplain

Abstract

In response to Hurricane Floyd, the Tar River crested at a record height of 4.30 m above the flood stage at the river gauge station of Greenville (North Carolina, USA) on 21 September 1999. This resulted in a massive flooding in the area. To delineate the maximum flood extent, an area of 238.4 km² along the Tar/Pamlico River, North Carolina, and within the overlapped area of Landsat 7 Thematic Mapper (TM) path 14/row 35 and path 15/row 35 scenes was studied. Three TM datasets of 28 July 1999 (path 15/row 35), 23 September 1999 (path 14/row 35) and 30 September 1999 (path 15/row 35) were analysed as pre-flood data, near peak data, and nine days after the peak data, respectively. The 23 and 30 September flood extent maps were derived by change detection and then verified by 85 nonflooded and flooded sites within the study area. The overall accuracies at the sites were between 82.5–99.3% on both inundation extent maps. Although the recorded river surface level fell 2.62 m from 23 to 30 September at the river gauge station of Greenville, comparison of the two flood extent maps on a pixel-by-pixel basis showed an agreement of 90.7% in terms of regular river channels and waterbodies, flooded areas and nonflooded areas. The 30 September map captured over 90% of the flood extent as identified on the 23 September map. These results suggest that it is possible to use remotely sensed data acquired days after a river's crest to capture most of the maximum extent of a flood occurring on a coastal floodplain, and should somewhat reduce the requirement to have concurrently remotely sensed data in mapping a flood extent on a coastal floodplain.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks two anonymous reviewers, whose comments have greatly improved the quality of the paper.