PULVIRENTI , Luca

The latest generation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems allows providing emergency managers with near real time flood maps characterized by a very high spatial resolution. However, mapping inundations in vegetated and urban areas still represents a critical issue, because the radar signatures of these targets are often ambiguous. This...

The assimilation of satellite-derived soil moisture estimates (soil moisture–data assimilation, SM–DA) into hydrological models has the potential to reduce the uncertainty of streamflow simulations. The improved capacity to moni- tor the closeness to saturation of small catchments, such as those characterizing the Mediterranean region, can be...

The capability of COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) radar to remotely sense standing water beneath vegetation using an auto- matic algorithm working on a single image is investigated. The ob- jective is to contribute to tackle the problem of missed detection of inundated vegetation by near real-time flood mapping algorithms using SAR data. The focus is on CSK...

The utility of the images supplied by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems for flood mapping was demonstrated by several literature studies and the use of SAR data is presently well-established in operational services for inundation management. However, because of the limited SAR image swath and the need of programming SAR acquisitions in...

In this paper, we investigate the role of polarimetric features to improve flood mapping in agricultural areas. Considering that the double bounce enhancement due to standing water can increase the backscatter from flooded agricultural fields, polarimetry can potentially detect this mechanism and mitigate the misdetection of algorithms based on...

First results of the assimilation of high-resolution Sentinel-1A based soil moisture products in a distributed, physically based, hydrological model are presented. A comprehensive evaluation of the assimilation's impact on discharge predictions is provided. Results are further compared to those obtained when assimilating the lower-resolution...

The use of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is presently well established in operational services for flood man- agement. However, some events might be missed because of the limited area that can be observed through a SAR image and the need of programming SAR acquisitions in advance. To tackle these problems, it is possible to setup a system...

This paper describes two examples of synergistic management of EO based services for flood emergency monitoring. The first relates to the benefits of collaboration between decision makers, end users and experts reporting the case of the November 2014 Liguria and Po River flooding, when early activation, prior to the occurrence of the flood, was...

The reliable estimation of soil moisture in space and time is of fundamental importance in operational hydrology to improve the forecast of the rainfall-runoff response of catchments and, consequently, flood predictions. Nowadays several satellite-derived soil moisture products are available and can offer a chance to improve hydrological model...

The reliable estimation of hydrological variables in space and time is of fundamental importance in operational hydrology to improve the flood predictions and hydrological cycle description. Nowadays remotely sensed data can offer a chance to improve hydrological models especially in environments with scarce ground based data. The aim of this...