GEOMAP Helps Mississippi River Flood Damage Assessment

After torrential storms in June, hundreds of satellite images were taken of the flooding in Illinois along the Mississippi River.  The images are now valuable tools for assessing the full scope of the flood damage, but federal and state agencies needed help to process them all.  That is when the phone rang at Illinois State University's Institute for Geospatial Analysis & Mapping (GEOMAP).

GEOMAP faculty members were asked by the U.S. Geological Survey to lend their expertise in processing the images and assembling them into a database.  GEOMAP utilizes state-of-the-art Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing and other geospatial technology software to support research, training, and community outreach in environmental sustainability and socioeconomic development. 

GEOMAP Director Dagmar Budikova, John Kostelnick, associate director, and Gretchen Knapp, research associate, along with a geography undergraduate student assistant, used specialized remote sensing software to sort the satellite images by date and location, enhance the image quality and assemble them into a GIS database for easy use by state agencies.         

The database allows agencies to quickly access images of specific locations in order to assess the extent of flood damage over time.  The images may also be used to predict the patterns of future flooding along the Mississippi River.  The satellite images in the database have already been used by the Illinois State Water Survey, the Illinois State Geological Survey and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

Geographic Information Science and Systems, remote sensing (e.g. satellite imagery), digital cartography, and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) lie at the heart of modern geospatial technologies. GIS provides sophisticated tools that help researchers and planners create, manage, and analyze digital data models of the complex natural and social worlds.