Application of Landsat 5 & High - Resolution Optical Satellite Imagery to Investigate Urban Tsunami Damage in Thailand as a Function of Pre - Tsunami Enviromental Degradation

In the aftermath of the Indian ocean tsunami, the media indicated that the clearing of coastal mangrove ecosystems for tourism and aquaculture may have have exacerbated infrastructure damage and human loss. This paper documents the use of moderate- and high resolution remote sensing imagery to furnish a multi-disciplinary international project team with data to begin scientifically investigating this assertion for the coast of Thailand. High resolution imagery in turn focused on selected study sites within the provinces of Ranong and Phang Nga. Of the multiple analyses that were conducted, this paper first documents the use of an historical sequence of Landsat 5 imagery spanning the past two decades to map changes in mangrove extents as an indicator for pre-tsunami environmental degradation. It goes on to describe the assessment of damage to coastal communities using high-resolution Quickbird and IKONOS imagery collected before and soon after the event. Following a description of the analytical methodologies employed, this paper further describes deployment of the VIEWS field data collection and visualization system for "ground-truthing" preliminary results. The paper presents provisional findings and concludes with a summary of future work.