EO AFRICA Webinar: Flood extent assessment in East Africa with Sentinel-2 data

A few months ago, East Africa faced the consequences of weeks of heavy rains and subsequent flooding, attributed in part to the El Niño weather phenomenon, impacting Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Somalia. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the flooding has devastated communities, with over 750,000 people affected and 234,000 displaced across the region. Tragically, the death toll continues to rise, with at least 400 fatalities including over 155 deaths in Tanzania and 257 in Kenya, as per local authorities. Flooding in the area resulted in tens of thousands of individuals requiring necessities such as food, shelter, clean water, and healthcare, and thousands of hectares of crops damaged.

The webinar will present techniques such as the calculation of water radiometric indices from optical Sentinel-2 bands (e.g. MNDWI, NDWI2, SWM) to assess the water extent and change detection in selected area. Practical demonstration using open-access software will guide attendees through basic processing steps to achieve desired results.

The duration of the webinar is 1 hour, followed by a live Q&A session.