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Monitoring the 1997 flood in the Red River Valley using hydrologic regimes and RADARSAT imagery
Author(s) -
Wilson Bradley A.,
Rashid Harun
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
canadian geographer / le géographe canadien
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.35
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1541-0064
pISSN - 0008-3658
DOI - 10.1111/j.0008-3658.2005.00082.x
Subject(s) - flood myth , flooding (psychology) , hydrology (agriculture) , floodplain , surface runoff , environmental science , satellite imagery , flash flood , remote sensing , geology , cartography , geography , archaeology , psychology , ecology , psychotherapist , biology , geotechnical engineering
In this study, we attempt to relate hydrologic regimes of the 1997 flood in the Red River Valley to the areal extent of flooding, determined from RADARSAT imagery. We obtained ten scenes of RADARSAT imagery, from 27 April to 1 July, including bitmaps delineating flooded areas for each date, from the Manitoba Centre of Remote Sensing. These images were co‐registered using an image‐to‐image registration process. By overlaying these flood maps in chronological order, we compared the areal extent of flooding with the hydrologic regimes of the Red River, expressed as relative depths of flooding above the bankful stage at selected gauging stations. The results of the study indicated that the area of flooding on 4 May (1,984 km2) corresponded well with the highest flood levels at several gauging stations. A previous scene on 27 April showed a larger area under water, but visual inspection of the processed imagery indicated a lack of conformity between flood level regimes and the areal extent of flooding on this date due to surface detention of pre‐flood storm runoff. Thus, the RADARSAT imagery represented the flood regimes adequately only when its interpretations were combined with hydrologic analysis and visual inspection of surface characteristics of the floodplain.