Impact Assessment of Flood Extent on Agricultural Land and Communities Using Google Earth Engine and SAR Data: A Case Study of Indus River Basin
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Abstract
The Indus River Basin has undergone significant hydrological changes due to climate change, leading to increased flood frequency, posing a risk to agriculture-based food security. This study focused on rain-induced flood events from August to September 2022 across the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan using Google Earth Engine, Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, and Landcover datasets. Flooding caused considerable damage to agricultural land and communities, affecting 49,602.92 km2 of land. In Sindh, the total land inundated is 2,042.1 km2 with 915.9 km2 of agricultural land and 609.8 km2 of built-up areas affected. Hence, district-level damage assessment includes Sukkur (497.1 km2), Sanghar (565.2 km2), and Khairpur (979.9 km2). In Baluchistan province, the flooded area was 10,733.4 km2. The agricultural land affected was 674.8 km2, and 47.8 km2 of built-up land. Heavy rain further intensified flooding affected 1002.2 km2 in Jhal Magsi, 7,266.5 km2 in Khuzdar, and 2,464.7 km2 in Lasbella. In Punjab, 4001.3 km2 of land flooded including 297.6 km2 of built-up areas, and 776.9 km2 affected agricultural land. At the District-level affected areas were D.G. Khan (1,871.3 km2), Muzaffargarh (620 km2), and Rajanpur (1,509.7 km2). integration of remote sensing and GEE provided crucial flood insights and climate risk reduction strategies, especially in data-scarce regions.
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