Articles | Volume 17, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1191-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-1191-2017
Research article
 | 
14 Jul 2017
Research article |  | 14 Jul 2017

Direct local building inundation depth determination in 3-D point clouds generated from user-generated flood images

Luisa Griesbaum, Sabrina Marx, and Bernhard Höfle

Abstract. In recent years, the number of people affected by flooding caused by extreme weather events has increased considerably. In order to provide support in disaster recovery or to develop mitigation plans, accurate flood information is necessary. Particularly pluvial urban floods, characterized by high temporal and spatial variations, are not well documented. This study proposes a new, low-cost approach to determining local flood elevation and inundation depth of buildings based on user-generated flood images. It first applies close-range digital photogrammetry to generate a geo-referenced 3-D point cloud. Second, based on estimated camera orientation parameters, the flood level captured in a single flood image is mapped to the previously derived point cloud. The local flood elevation and the building inundation depth can then be derived automatically from the point cloud. The proposed method is carried out once for each of 66 different flood images showing the same building façade. An overall accuracy of 0.05 m with an uncertainty of ±0.13 m for the derived flood elevation within the area of interest as well as an accuracy of 0.13 m ± 0.10 m for the determined building inundation depth is achieved. Our results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide reliable flood information on a local scale using user-generated flood images as input. The approach can thus allow inundation depth maps to be derived even in complex urban environments with relatively high accuracies.

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Short summary
This study provides a new method for flood documentation based on user-generated flood images. We demonstrate how flood elevation and building inundation depth can be derived from photographs by means of 3-D reconstruction of the scene. With an accuracy of 0.13 m ± 0.10 m, the derived building inundation depth can be used to facilitate damage assessment.
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