Evaluation of floodings events in the Norte Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, using remote sensing imagery

Abstract

This study aimed to identify and to quantify the flooded area in the 2008/2009 summer period in the Norte Fluminense region, Rio de Janeiro state using remote sensing images. For this, Landsat-5 TM and CBERS-2B CCD images acquired before and after flooding occurrence were used. In these images, the Linear Spectral Mixture Model – LSMM was applied in order to highlight the areas occupied by water bodies. It was concluded that the water bodies in the region suffered an increment of 2.61 times corresponding to 99,000 ha of total area of water surface based on the comparison of the TM image acquired on July 26, 2007 (without flooding) with TM acquired on November 17, 2008 and with the CCD image of January 20, 2009 acquired after the rainy season in this region.