Change Detection of Urban Areas Affected by Earthquake Using Kompsat-5 Data

In this study, a new urban change detection method to effectively detect building damages from Kompsat-5 SAR images having relatively long temporal baseline and different observational conditions is presented. The proposed urban change detection method includes the extraction of building areas using morphological operations and the detection of damage-related changes based on morphological indices. Experimental results indicate that the use of morphological building indices associated with characteristic scattering mechanisms in urban areas can reduce false-alarms in natural changes and improve detectability in building-damaged areas.