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The use of unmanned aerial vehicles to estimate direct tangible losses to residential properties from flood events: A case study of Cockermouth following the Desmond storm

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dc.creator Rivas Casado, Monica
dc.creator Irvine, Tracy
dc.creator Johnson, Sarah
dc.creator Palma, Marco
dc.creator Leinster, Paul
dc.date 2018-10-01T09:15:33Z
dc.date 2018-10-01T09:15:33Z
dc.date 2018-09-26
dc.date.accessioned 2022-05-25T16:38:35Z
dc.date.available 2022-05-25T16:38:35Z
dc.identifier Rivas Casado M, Irvine T, Johnson S, et al., (2018) The use of unmanned aerial vehicles to estimate direct tangible losses to residential properties from flood events: A case study of Cockermouth following the Desmond storm. Remote Sensing, Volume, Issue 10, 2018, Article number 1548
dc.identifier 2072-4292
dc.identifier https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10101548
dc.identifier http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/13497
dc.identifier 21593552
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/182353
dc.description Damage caused by flood events is expected to increase in the coming decades driven by increased land use pressures and climate change impacts. The insurance sector needs accurate and efficient loss adjustment methodologies for flood events. These can include remote sensing approaches that enable the rapid estimation of (i) damage caused to property as well as (ii) the number of affected properties. Approaches based on traditional remote sensing methods have limitations associated with low-cloud cover presence, oblique viewing angles, and the resolution of the geomatic products obtained. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as a potential tool for post-event assessment and provide a means of overcoming the limitations listed above. This paper presents a UAV-based loss-adjustment framework for the estimation of direct tangible losses to residential properties affected by flooding. For that purpose, features indicating damage to property were mapped from UAV imagery collected after the Desmond storm (5 and 6 December 2015) over Cockermouth (Cumbria, UK). Results showed that the proposed framework provided an accuracy of 84% in the detection of direct tangible losses compared with on-the-ground household-by-household assessment approaches. Results also demonstrated the importance of pluvial and, from eye witness reports, lateral flow flooding, with a total of 168 properties identified as flooded falling outside the fluvial flood extent. The direct tangible losses associated with these additional properties amounted to as high as £3.6 million. The damage-reducing benefits of resistance measures were also calculated and amounted to around £4 million. Differences in direct tangible losses estimated using the proposed UAV approach and the more classic loss-adjustment methods relying on the fluvial flood extent was around £1 million—the UAV approach providing the higher estimate. Overall, the study showed that the proposed UAV approach could make a significant contribution to improving the estimation of the costs associated with urban flooding, and responses to flooding events, at national and international levels.
dc.language en
dc.rights Attribution 4.0 International
dc.rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject drone
dc.subject unmanned aerial vehicle
dc.subject flood
dc.subject catastrophe
dc.subject impact
dc.subject extent
dc.subject damage
dc.subject identification
dc.title The use of unmanned aerial vehicles to estimate direct tangible losses to residential properties from flood events: A case study of Cockermouth following the Desmond storm
dc.type Article


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