Post-earthquake Damage Assessment Using Satellite and Airborne Data in the Case of the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake, Turkey

To date, prevention of natural disasters is only rarely achieved, and such events continue to pose an increasing threat to life and property. Especially following earthquakes, there is a need for rapid, accurate and reliable damage information in the critical postevent hours. Remote sensing technology can provide valuable information for response activities due to potentially high spatialtemporal resolution and synoptic coverage. This work aims at integrating (not in a sense of image fusion, but of synergy) vertical satellite and oblique airborne imagery to improve damage assessment in the case of the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake, Turkey. Pre and post-earthquake Spot4 HRVIR were analyzed using change detection methodology to detect damaged areas at the regional level. Since vertical satellite imagery has limitations in detecting structural damage, airborne oblique video imagery was used to improve the damage information at the local level. Aerial video imagery of Golcuk was analyzed by visual interpretation and multi level thresholding of texture and color indices feature layers. Additionally, to determine the effectiveness of the use of remote sensing technology in emergency activities, user information requirements were investigated by interviewing emergency organizations in Turkey. The results indicate significant limitations of moderate-resolution optical satellite imagery for post-earthquake damage assessment. Despite substantial processing, registration and integration challenges of aerial video imagery, it can improve damage assessment at the local level. On the other hand, even using video imagery cannot fulfil all user information requirements, as most of the information requires integration of GIS and RS data.