Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness
The spatial distribution and size of avalanches are essential parameters for avalanche warning, avalanche documentation, mitigation measure design and hazard zonation. Despite its importance, this information is incomplete today and only available for limited areas and limited time periods. Manual a...
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:542b870ba34f4a1dbd69a41291f8a111 2023-05-15T18:32:17+02:00 Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness E. D. Hafner F. Techel S. Leinss Y. Bühler 2021-02-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-983-2021 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/983/2021/tc-15-983-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/article/542b870ba34f4a1dbd69a41291f8a111 en eng Copernicus Publications doi:10.5194/tc-15-983-2021 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/983/2021/tc-15-983-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/article/542b870ba34f4a1dbd69a41291f8a111 undefined The Cryosphere, Vol 15, Pp 983-1004 (2021) geo manag Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2021 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-983-2021 2023-01-22T18:42:54Z The spatial distribution and size of avalanches are essential parameters for avalanche warning, avalanche documentation, mitigation measure design and hazard zonation. Despite its importance, this information is incomplete today and only available for limited areas and limited time periods. Manual avalanche mapping from satellite imagery has recently been applied to reduce this gap achieving promising results. However, their reliability and completeness have not yet been verified satisfactorily. In our study we attempt a full validation of the completeness of visually detected and mapped avalanches from optical SPOT 6, Sentinel-2 and radar Sentinel-1 imagery. We examine manually mapped avalanches from two avalanche periods in 2018 and 2019 for an area of approximately 180 km2 around Davos, Switzerland, relying on ground- and helicopter-based photographs as ground truth. For the quality assessment, we investigate the probability of detection (POD) and the positive predictive value (PPV). Additionally, we relate our results to conditions which potentially influence avalanche detection in the satellite imagery. We statistically confirm the high potential of SPOT for comprehensive avalanche mapping for selected periods (POD = 0.74, PPV = 0.88) as well as the reliability of Sentinel-1 (POD = 0.27, PPV = 0.87) for which the POD is reduced because mainly larger avalanches are mapped. Furthermore, we found that Sentinel-2 is unsuitable for the mapping of most avalanches due to its spatial resolution (POD = 0.06, PPV = 0.81). Because we could apply the same reference avalanche events for all three satellite mappings, our validation results are robust and comparable. We demonstrate that satellite-based avalanche mapping has the potential to fill the existing avalanche documentation gap over large areas, making alpine regions safer. Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Unknown The Cryosphere 15 2 983 1004 |
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geo manag E. D. Hafner F. Techel S. Leinss Y. Bühler Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
topic_facet |
geo manag |
description |
The spatial distribution and size of avalanches are essential parameters for avalanche warning, avalanche documentation, mitigation measure design and hazard zonation. Despite its importance, this information is incomplete today and only available for limited areas and limited time periods. Manual avalanche mapping from satellite imagery has recently been applied to reduce this gap achieving promising results. However, their reliability and completeness have not yet been verified satisfactorily. In our study we attempt a full validation of the completeness of visually detected and mapped avalanches from optical SPOT 6, Sentinel-2 and radar Sentinel-1 imagery. We examine manually mapped avalanches from two avalanche periods in 2018 and 2019 for an area of approximately 180 km2 around Davos, Switzerland, relying on ground- and helicopter-based photographs as ground truth. For the quality assessment, we investigate the probability of detection (POD) and the positive predictive value (PPV). Additionally, we relate our results to conditions which potentially influence avalanche detection in the satellite imagery. We statistically confirm the high potential of SPOT for comprehensive avalanche mapping for selected periods (POD = 0.74, PPV = 0.88) as well as the reliability of Sentinel-1 (POD = 0.27, PPV = 0.87) for which the POD is reduced because mainly larger avalanches are mapped. Furthermore, we found that Sentinel-2 is unsuitable for the mapping of most avalanches due to its spatial resolution (POD = 0.06, PPV = 0.81). Because we could apply the same reference avalanche events for all three satellite mappings, our validation results are robust and comparable. We demonstrate that satellite-based avalanche mapping has the potential to fill the existing avalanche documentation gap over large areas, making alpine regions safer. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
E. D. Hafner F. Techel S. Leinss Y. Bühler |
author_facet |
E. D. Hafner F. Techel S. Leinss Y. Bühler |
author_sort |
E. D. Hafner |
title |
Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
title_short |
Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
title_full |
Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
title_fullStr |
Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
title_full_unstemmed |
Mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
title_sort |
mapping avalanches with satellites – evaluation of performance and completeness |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-983-2021 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/983/2021/tc-15-983-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/article/542b870ba34f4a1dbd69a41291f8a111 |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 15, Pp 983-1004 (2021) |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-15-983-2021 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/983/2021/tc-15-983-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/article/542b870ba34f4a1dbd69a41291f8a111 |
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op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-983-2021 |
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The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
15 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
983 |
op_container_end_page |
1004 |
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