Geospatial Technique for Rapid Delineation of Potential Hurricane Damage

Rapid delineation of potential damage from hurricanes to the natural and human-modified landscape is critical for disaster management and for assessment of ecological and economic impacts. Geospatial technologies including Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information Systems/Science (GIS), and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) provide new tools for delineating damage potential and for assessing destruction after natural disasters. Historically, airborne and space RS missions have been used for post-hurricane impact assessment, but these data are limited in a variety of ways. Space-based RS data have limitations including differing specifications for spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution. As an example, predicting damage or assessing damage from land-falling hurricanes via satellite data is often hampered by temporal resolution (re-visit frequency) that can result in unavailability of cloudfree images over impacted areas. Airborne RS data are not temporally limited to a specific window of ground coverage and can even acquire data during cloudy conditions. Airborne RS instruments may provide data of higher spectral and spatial resolution than space-borne instruments; however complete ‘wall-to-wall’ coverage of landscapes impacted by tropical systems as large as hurricane Katrina can be impractical and prohibitively expensive. Consequently, many geospatial analysts first use space-borne data and geospatial modeling at a relatively coarse-resolution to provide an overview of hurricane impacted areas, and then they use this information to pinpoint locations where they need to acquire airborne RS data for higher-resolution subsets of damaged areas. Therefore, there is a need to develop more accurate geospatial models that incorporate readily available data at a regional scale to assist emergency and disaster management agencies with their decision-support. According to Hodgson et al., (2010), agencies with first responder responsibilities have expressed the critical need for image acquisitions over disaster impacted areas within 24 hours, or within three days of the event at a minimum. Given the limitations for rapid acquisition of RS imagery over hurricane-impacted areas, researchers at Mississippi State University in coordination with Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) advisors have developed a geospatial modeling-based tool that enables rapid depiction (within 24 – 48 hours after landfall) of a damage probability statistical grid which incorporates readily available data sources such as storm surge predictions and precipitation and wind forecasts. This grid can be overlain on a variety of image and GIS base layers to help plan for evacuation procedures prior to landfall and to help orient and manage the effective allocation of resources to impacted areas.