Satellite image detection of blue roofs to monitor coastal storm damage and recovery
Abstract
Tropical cyclones are one of the most costly hazards in the United States with approximately $27 billion in losses annually from 1980 to 2021. Severe wind, extreme precipitation and flooding from coastal storms impact human lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, financial assets and stress communities to quickly recover and prepare before the next event occurs. Accurate exposure estimates of both population and infrastructure to coastal storms are critical to mitigate future losses and inform land use planning for future development or potential relocation of communities. Advances in the spatial and temporal resolution of remotely sensed satellite imagery and deep learning techniques capable of extracting detailed spatial features offer an opportunity to tackle the challenge of urban damage and recovery monitoring following coastal storms. This research draws upon high-resolution commercial PlanetScope imagery to detect and map blue roofs, or the presence of blue tarps that are installed on buildings after a coastal storm or inundation event occurs. Here we compare the locations of detected blue roofs in Lake Charles, Louisiana following Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020 with georeferenced data of where FEMA's Individual Assistance Program dispersed financial assistance to individuals and households who sustained losses to damaged property at the census block level. This relationship is useful for validating the detection of building damage and for tracking residential recovery as communities and individuals finance repairs to damaged buildings. To assess if there is an unequal distribution of damage and recovery timelines as indicated by appearance and remove of blue tarps, US Census data is assessed to summarize socio-economic variables including average household size and income, percent renter, and percent non-white residents for all census block units. We expect the results of this research to contribute insights into the advantages and unique challenges of satellite imagery to track the trajectory of urban damage and repair following an extreme coastal storm event, and the patterns of federal disaster assistance and socio-economic characteristics at these locations.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022AGUFMNH15A..08F