(FRI) Flood types

ICEYE FRI focuses on producing automated analysis of flood events. The FRI analysis and methodology is best fit to floods that last longer than 24 hours, and have a large flooded area spanning several counties to several states or countries. Generally those events are caused by:

heavy rainfall (pluvial) and
overflowing rivers (fluvial),

and can be usually forecasted in advance. Best flood extent coverage in terms of recall is expected in sub-urban and rural areas, with coarse coverage in dense urban areas.

While our technology can analyze other types of floods, there are limitations:

Flash floods: These rapid events often recede before we can capture
observational evidence of the impact, making analysis challenging.

Coastal storm surge: The short duration, variable nature, and large affected
areas of these floods may pose data acquisition challenges.

For very short events (12-24 hours or less), a single estimate of flood extent may be possible, but not guaranteed depending on the geographical size of the event. For short events (24-48h), typically the event can be covered, but extent growth coverage may be limited. For longer events (48 hours or more), it is possible to also see flood extent growth, given enough evidence information is available.