Application of Remote Sensing for Tsunami Disaster

This chapter aims to introduce an application of remote sensing to recent tsunami disasters. In the past, acquiring tsunami damage information was limited to only field surveys and/or using aerial photographs. In the last decade, remote sensing was applied in many tsunami researches, such as tsunami damage detection. Satellite remote sensing can help us survey tsunami damage in many ways. In general, the application of remote sensing for tsunami disasters can be classified into three stages depending on time and disaster-related information. In the first stage, general damage information, such as tsunami inundation limits, can be obtained promptly using an analysis combined with ground truth information in GIS. The tsunami inundation area is one of the most important types of information in the immediate aftermath of a tsunami because it helps estimate the scale of the tsunami’s impact. Travel to a tsunami-affected area for field surveys takes a lot of time, given the presence of damaged roads and bridges, with much debris as obstacles. In the second stage, detailed damage interpretation can be analysed; i.e., classification of the building damage level. Recently, the quality of commercial satellite images has improved. These images help us clarify, i.e., whether a house was washed away or survived; they can even classify more damage levels. The third stage combines the damage and hazard information obtained from a numerical simulation, such as the tsunami inundation depth. The damage data are compiled with the tsunami hazard data via GIS. Finally, a tsunami vulnerability function can be developed. This function is a necessary tool for assessing future tsunami risk.