The NASA Global Flood Mapping System

Significant flooding is a common occurrence in many parts of the globe, and remote sensing from satellite platforms can provide near real-time information for response during flooding disasters. This same information is also valuable for flood mitigation, preparedness, and recovery including large-scale infrastructure planning, settling insurance claims following flood disasters, and planning community rebuilding. Here we review the basic considerations of mapping surface water and flood extent using remote sensing and describe the NASA Near Real Time Global Flood Mapping System, a fully automated, near real-time system designed to produce such products for nearly the entire globe each day. The NASA system, a collaboration between NASA and the Dartmouth Flood Observatory, processes data from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) instruments on the NASA Aqua and Terra satellites to produce a range of products for use by both the disaster management community and the scientific research community.