Time Series Analysis of Food Mapping of Mississippi Delta Using Multi-Temporal Sentinel-1 SAR Images

Abstract Submission: This study aims to perform the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) time series analysis for flood Mapping in the Mississippi (MS) Delta region. In radar images, water surfaces typically contrast starkly with land surfaces. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is valuable in flood management due to its ability to penetrate cloud cover and its robustness to extreme weather conditions. Sentinel-1 multitemporal SAR images between 2020 and 2024 were used in this study to obtain the spatial distribution and temporal changes of the Mississippi River Delta's flood mapping and identify the most vulnerable areas to flooding. This study used an interferometric Sentinel-1A observation product with high-resolution Ground Range Detected (GRD) data. Specifically, co-polarization VV and cross-polarization VH of ascending and descending orbit satellites were used for time series analysis. Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) was performed for flood mapping using pairs of multitemporal Sentinel-1 images using the Alaska satellite facility's workflow for monitoring flooding patterns of the Mississippi delta region over the years. Additionally, this study emphasized the before and after flooding conditions due to extreme weather events during the timeline and tracked land subsidence due to flooding in the MS delta region. The output of this study is a binary flood map of the Mississippi Delta region identifying the most vulnerable areas affected by coastal flooding every year. The raster output was then exported as a georeferenced file and imported into ArcGIS for further analysis and visualization. The flooding map variations over the years were compared with those from the NOAA's flood maps for the southeastern US. Time-series flood inundation maps are crucial for post-disaster relief efforts. They allow us to gauge the region's vulnerability, especially for the flooding-prone MS delta region, and deliver focused relief.
Keywords: InSAR Time-series analysis, Flood mapping, Mississippi River delta, Persistent Scatterer Interferometry, subsidence etc.

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