Flooding in Mozambique

Extensive flooding in southern Mozambique is visible in this radiometric terrain corrected (RTC) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) backscatter image from the ESA (European Space Agency's) Sentinel-1A platform. Heavy rains in December and January sent floodwaters into heavily populated areas along the Limpopo and Incomati rivers. On the map, swipe the bar left and right to see the flood levels change between Jan.16 and Jan. 24. Urban and sparsely vegetated areas, shown in pink/white, can be seen in the Jan. 16 image and are subsequently shown as flooded and inundated with water, shown in black, in the Jan. 24 image. 

The before and after comparison image above is zoomed into the area surrounding the city of Xai-Xai, which is located along the Limpopo River, experienced extensive flooding. Swipe the bar back and forth to see the flooded areas in black.

Learn more in Earth Observatory's Floods Inundate Southern Mozambique.

The RTC SAR backscatter from Sentinel-1 (RTC-S1) product, produced by NASA's Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project, provides terrain-corrected radar images with a 30-meter pixel spacing. SAR images deliver all-weather, day-and-night imaging of Earth's surface.

RTC-S1 images are displayed in false-color for better visual interpretation of the SAR backscatter data. The false-color RGB visualization combines co-polarized VV (vertical transmit vertical receive) or HH (horizontal transmit horizontal receive) backscatter values, shown in red and blue, with cross-polarized VH (vertical transmit horizontal receive) and HV (horizontal transmit vertical receive) values, shown in green, to generate a color image from SAR data. 

In this false-color scale, vegetated areas appear green; urban and/or sparsely vegetated areas appear white/pink; calm water, dry sand, and frozen ground appears black; and rough water appears purple or magenta. Note there are other land covers not listed that may have similar appearance, and it is recommended that users consult auxiliary datasets to help determine the land cover of interest.

The OPERA RTC-S1 product contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data corresponding to the same time period of the OPERA RTC-S1 product. The OPERA project, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and funded by the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG), creates remote sensing products to address Earth observation needs across U.S. civilian federal agencies.

Visit Worldview to visualize near real-time imagery and historical imagery from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS); find more imagery in our Worldview weekly image archive.