Rapid Estimation of Flood Crop Loss by Using DVDI

Flood is one of serious nature disasters. It can cause significant damages to crops. It is often a need to know degree of damages to crops immediately after a flood event. This study proposed a method to use a remotely-sensed index, namely the disaster vegetation damage index (DVDI), to rapidly measure the crop damage due to flood. The degree of damage due to flood is classified into six categories: no damage, slight damage, moderate damage, severe damage, extreme damage, and exceptional damage, by dividing DVDI values into five equal intervals. The effectiveness of the method was demonstrated by applying it to 2011 Missouri river flood and 2016 Louisiana flood.