Mapping the 2010 Pakistan floods and its impact on human life: A post-disaster assessment of socio-economic indicators

In recent years, in 2010 in particular, several major flood events hit various regions around the world. The Pakistan floods, which affected the country during July to September 2010, were notable as one of the worst natural disasters ever seen in terms of the number of people affected - 20.2 million of whom 1,985 people were killed. In this paper we present a post-disaster assessment of these 2010 Pakistan floods. Several spatial data sets were used (most of them freely available) to map and analyze the socio-economic impact of the disaster. The datasets compiled for the assessment range from soil moisture data, which help us to analyze root causes for the flood event, to flood extent, population as well as land cover data, which were used to assess the socio-economic impact of the disaster. Information on current and previous soil conditions - as derived through microwave remote sensing - facilitate time series analyses and anomaly assessments for the identification of potentially hazardous situations. In this paper the availability and application of various socio-economic datasets is discussed and assessed. Additionally, the opportunity to apply soil moisture related data in the context of severe flooding is explored. Focusing on these two elements - indicators on hazard and vulnerability - the integration within a risk assessment will be emphasized.