Digital mapping of coastal boulders – high-resolution data acquisition to infer past and recent transport dynamics

Coastal boulder fields provide clues to long-term frequency-magnitude patterns of coastal flooding events and have the potential to play an important role in coastal hazard assessment. Mapping boulders in the field is time and labour-intensive, and work on intertidal reef platforms, as in the present study, is physically challenging. By addressing coastal scientists who are not specialists in remote sensing, this contribution reports on the possibilities and limitations of digital applications in boulder mapping in Eastern Samar, Philippines, where recent supertyphoons Haiyan and Hagupit induced high waves, coastal flooding and boulder transport. It is demonstrated how satellite imagery of sub-metre resolution (from Pléiades and WorldView-3 imagery) enables efficient analysis of transport vectors and distances of larger boulders, reflecting variation in latitudes of both typhoon tracks and approaching angles of typhoon-generated waves. During the investigated events, boulders with a-axes of up to 8 m were clearly identified to have been shifted for up to 32 m, mostly along the seaward margin of the boulder field. It is, however, hard to keep track of smaller boulders, and the length of a-axes and b-axes including their orientation is often impossible to map with sufficient accuracy. Orthophotographs and digital surface models created through the application of an unmanned aerial vehicle and the ‘Structure from Motion’ technique provide ultra-high-resolution data, and have the potential to not only improve the results of satellite image analysis, but also those from field mapping and may significantly reduce overall time in the field. Orthophotographs permit unequivocal mapping of a-axes and b-axes including their orientation, while precise values for c-axes can be derived from the respective digital surface models. Volume of boulders is best inferred from boulder-specific Structure from Motion-based three-dimensional models. Battery power, flight speed and altitude determine the limits of the area covered, while patches shielded by the boulders are difficult to resolve. For some tasks, field mapping remains mandatory and cannot be replaced by currently available remote sensing tools: for example, sampling for rock type, density and age dating, recording of lithological separation of boulders from the underlying geological unit and of geomorphic features on a millimetre to decimetre-scale, or documentation of fine-grained sediment transport in between the boulders in supratidal settings. In terms of future events, the digital products presented here will provide a valuable reference to track boulder transport on a centimetre to decimetre-scale and to better understand the hydrodynamics of extreme-wave events on a fringing reef coastline.     

Shallow landslide susceptibility mapping using high-resolution topography for areas devastated by super typhoon Haiyan

Super typhoon Haiyan, considered as one of the most powerful storms recorded in 2013, devastated the central Philippines region on 8 November 2013 with damage amounting to more than USD 2 billion. Hardest hit is the province of Leyte which is located in central Philippines. Rehabilitation of the areas that were devastated requires detailed hazard maps as a basis for well-planned reconstruction. Along with severe wind, storm surge, and flood hazard maps, detailed landslide susceptibility maps for the cities and municipalities of Leyte (7246.7 km²) province are necessary. In order to rapidly assess and delineate areas susceptible to rainfall-induced shallow landslides, Stability INdex MAPping (SINMAP) software was used over a 5-m Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR)-derived digital terrain model (DTM) grid. Topographic, soil strength, and hydrologic parameters were used for each pixel of a given DTM grid to compute for the corresponding factor of safety. The landslide maps generated using SINMAP are highly consistent with the landslide inventory derived from high-resolution satellite imagery from 2002 to 2014 with a detection percentage of 97.5 % and missing factor of 0.025. These demonstrate that SINMAP performs well despite the lack of an extensive geotechnical and hydrological database in the study area. The detailed landslide susceptibility classification is useful to identify safe and unsafe areas for reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts. These maps complement the debris flow and structurally controlled landslide hazard maps that are also being prepared for rebuilding Haiyan’s devastated areas.     

Practices in disaster mitigation in the case of the 2015 Typhoon Koppu debris flows in Nueva Ecija,Philippines

Natural Hazards - In October 2015, heavy rains brought by Typhoon Koppu generated landslides and debris flows in the municipalities of Bongabon, Laur, and Gabaldon in Nueva Ecija province....