VIIRS Flood Detection Software Version 1.1 Release

[kathys]

We are pleased to announce a new release of the Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) Flood Detection retrieval software that supports Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS at I-Band (375 m) resolution. This software is developed by Sanmei Li and Donglian Sun at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. This CSPP release provides VIIRS Flood Detection Software Version 1.1, adapted and tested for operation in a real-time direct broadcast environment. The software contains binary executable files and supporting static data files, as well as input and output files for verification of a successful installation.

CSPP development is led by the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with funding support from the NOAA/NASA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

The CSPP VIIRS Flood Detection software is designed for global automatic flood detection using NOAA-20 and Suomi-NPP VIIRS Sensor Data Record (SDR) inputs, as well as the VIIRS Cloud Mask Environmental Data Record (EDR) if it is available. The software can process either full pass length SDRs by default, or user defined Area of Interest (AOI) latitude/longitude regions.

What is New in CSPP Flood Version 1.1?

• • Added support for VIIRS on the NOAA-20 satellite.
  • Retrievals over ocean waters no longer include clouds. Therefore, the GeoTIFF images will not display clouds over ocean waters.
  • Improved cloud shadow detection, and detection of mixed water/ice phase regions, and cloud/snow_cover/water_surface classifications.

The software can be successfully executed under the following conditions:

• • Day time datasets. The software will process all data within a pass where the Solar Zenith Angle is less than 85 degrees.
  • Datasets with maximum latitude less than 85°N/85°S and an average latitude of the aggregated granules less than 75°N/75°S.
  • When using an Area of Interest (AOI) file, the subset boundaries fall within the overpass data coverage.

Output Products

The output product is one HDF4 file per pass or Area of Interest that contains a Short Integer array named “WaterDetection” for each reprojected 375 m image element. The “WaterDetection” values correspond to the following categories:

• • 1: No valid data
  • 15: Water surface without water fraction retrieval
  • 16: Bare land
  • 17: Vegetation
  • 20: Snow or ice
  • 27: River ice
  • 30: Cloud
  • 88: Supra-snow/ice water or Mixed ice and water or Melting Ice
  • 150: Cloud Shadow
  • 199: Normal Open Water
  • 200-300: Floodwater Fraction

In addition, a script is included that can create a color enhanced 8 bit GeoTIFF from an output Flood Detection HDF4 file.

System Requirements

The system requirements for the CSPP_FLOOD Version 1.1 software have not changed from the Version 1.0 requirements:

• • Intel or AMD CPU with 64-bit instruction support,
  • 8 GB RAM,
  • CentOS-6 64-bit Linux (or other compatible 64-bit Linux distribution),
  • 15 GB of disk space (plus space for your own DB data and CSPP_FLOOD products).

The CSPP Version 1.1 Flood Detection software, installation guide and test data are available at the CSPP Download site:

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/cspp/