Flood mapping with terraSAR-X in forested regions in Estonia

In this study, an extensive flood in Estonia during spring 2010 was mapped with TerraSAR-X data acquired over both open and forested areas. This was the first time when a large scale flooding area was mapped in Estonia by means of spaceborne remote sensing. This was also the first time when X-band SAR images were successfully used for flood mapping under the forest canopy in the temperate forest zone. The tree height in the study region was 15-25 meters on average, and main tree species were birch (leaf-off condition), pine and spruce. The results were compared with ALOS PALSAR and Envisat ASAR images of the same flooding event. In the study area, TerraSAR-X provided on average 3.2 dB higher backscatter over mixed forest flooded areas compared to non-flooded areas. In deciduous and coniferous forests the difference in average backscatter between flooded and non-flooded forests was even greater, 6.2 dB and 4.0 dB, respectively. A supervised classification algorithm was developed to produce high resolution maps of the flooded area from the TerraSAR-X images to demonstrate the flood mapping capability at X-band. Our results show, that spaceborne X-band SAR data, which currently has the highest resolution among the SAR instruments in space, can be used to map floods under forest canopy in temperate zone despite its short wavelength and high attenuation