Improving flood monitoring in rural areas using remote sensing

© IWA Publishing 2019. All rights reserved. Precise information on the extent of inundated land is required for flood monitoring, relief, and protective measures. In this paper, two spectral indices, Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), were used to identify inundated areas during heavy rainfall events in the Tarwin catchment, Victoria, Australia, using Landsat-8 OLI imagery. By integrating the assessed condition of levees, this research also explains the inefficiency of the flood control measures of this region of Australia. NDWI and MNDWI indices performed well, but water features were enhanced better in the NDWI-derived image, with an accuracy of 96.04% and Kappa coefficient of 0.83.