[A-CG36] Satellite Earth Environment Observation

[ACG36-P20] How can SAR small-satellite constellation potentially monitor flood area?

*Rie Seto¹, Natsumi Kitajima¹, Dai Yamazaki², Xudong Zhou², Wenchao MA², Shinjiro Kanae¹ (1.Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2.The University of Tokyo)

Keywords:SAR small-satellite constellation, flood area monitoring, virtual experiment

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an observation technology that is effective for flood detection at night or in bad weather conditions, and the operation of a constellation of small satellites equipped with SAR is becoming increasingly possible. In this study, we invsetigated how a flood inundation area is observed by a small SAR satellite constellation using a newly developed method that integrates satellite orbit design and flood simulation. The results of virtual experiments of two flood cases in Japan showed specific changes in observation behavior with the change in number of satellites and orbital planes. In addition, a performance evaluation in the inundation area observation suggested that the amount of temporal change was a more dominant factor than the spatial range of the flood area.