A Review of remote sensing techniques to monitor and assess the flood in Pakistan

Heavy monsoon in the upper and lower Indus basin has caused frequent flooding in Pakistan. 2010 and 2022 floods in Pakistan have left millions of people homeless, claimed thousands of lives and resulted in huge economic losses. Efforts have been made to identify potential remote sensing techniques used to monitor and assess the flood in Pakistan. This study presents the review of literature on the potential remote sensing techniques used to monitor and assess flood. This review consists of 38 peer reviewed articles published during 2012-2022 period, narrowed down using keywords: flood, remote sensing, climate change and Pakistan. Few examples of Remote sensing techniques used in the literature to monitor and assess flood include inundation mapping, delineating flood extent and supervised classification using maximum likelihood to detect LULC change. Various remote sensing sensors used in the literature to monitor and assess floods such as Landsat OLI, ETM, and ETM+, MODIS TERRA and AQUA, and SRTM DEM. Major factors causing floods include climate change, extreme rainfall and urbanization. This review provides the remote sensing techniques used in the literature to monitor, assess and manage these kinds of disastrous situations. This can improve development strategies set by disaster management authorities to control future flood conditions.