Advancing Flood Extent Delineation Modeling Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Data

The primary goal of this research is to advance flood extent delineation modeling by enhancing the ability of the modeling community to access and utilize the forecasts and reanalysis products of the National Water Model. One of the most difficult challenges facing stakeholders in the flood inundation domain is the lack of easily accessible tools to query and process the large and complex datasets needed to accelerate their work. Even when such tools are available, processing these datasets is time consuming and costly for many organizations, and is commonly cited as a barrier to more expedient research. This project seeks to address these challenges by combining cloud native data and data processing formats with the Python programming language to create valuable new tools for interactive and exploratory analysis. Such tools will not only make the rapid delivery of flood inundation maps possible, but will also provide the potential to inform future data infrastructure that improves communication between the National Water Center and regional River Forecast Centers. Further, because the structure of national Water Model outputs is common across the hydrological domain, the results of this research will also be applicable to a broad range of other hydrological projects.