POSSIBILITIES OF THE JOINT USE OF OPTICAL AND RADAR DATA IN FLOOD SPACE MONITORING

Abstract. The article gives a brief description of the system of space monitoring of high water and floods. Its main tasks are the operational dynamics of snow and ice cover melting and the passage of flood waters. The solution of these tasks is carried out in three levels corresponding to the low, medium and high resolution of remote sensing data. An important role in monitoring is given to radar data. This is due to the features of the radar survey: independence from weather conditions and time of day, regularity, good spatial resolution, the possibility of using polarimetric properties (including phase information). The use of radar data also provides additional information, including the allocation of wet soils, flooded vegetation and infrastructure. The presence of large time periods of repeated survey, interference (cloudiness, haze, noise, etc.), different spatial resolution necessitates a complex analysis of optical and radar data in flood space monitoring. Such analysis makes it possible to better observe the flood dynamics, more precisely identify of flooding zones and determine their structure. Features of radar survey (transparency of dry snow and change of reflected signal during snowmelt) allow using them to determine the beginning of snow melt and determine the degree of water content in it. Optical data are also used to determine the area and structure of the snow cover. Method of detecting the beginning of the snowmelt period consists in the comparison of the current radar image with a base image created as an average image from the winter images with dry snow.