Damage Detection Using High-Resolution SAR Imagery in the 2009 L'Aquila, Italy, Earthquake

Satellite remote sensing is being used to monitor disaster-affected areas for post-disaster reconnaissance and recovery. One of the special features of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is that it can operate day and night and penetrate the cloud cover because of which it is being widely used in emergency situations. Building damage detection for the 6 April 2009 L'Aquila, Italy, earthquake was conducted using high-resolution TerraSAR-X images obtained before and after the event. The correlation coefficient and the difference of backscafter coefficients of the pre- and post-event images were calculated in a similar way as Matsuoka and Yamazaki (2004). The threshold value of the correlation coefficient was suggested and used in detecting building damage. The results were compared with ground truth data and a post-event optical image. Based on the study, building damage could be observed in an urban setting of L'Aquila with overall accuracy of 89.8% and Kappa coefficient of 0.45.