Abstract
Numerous in-orbit satellites have been monitoring and recording hurricanes since the late 1960s. Organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) have been able to predict how these storms will develop and report damage to emergency services after a hurricane makes landfall. Hurricanes can create significant flooding due to prolonged heavy rain, strong storm surges from the ocean, and wind damage to the vegetation and infrastructure. These elements have the power to completely alter the area and even its morphology. One of the capabilities of the two synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites Sentinel-1A and -1B is the detection of surface-level geographical changes. The implementation of information services pertaining to the environment and security is part of the Sentinel-1 mission. It is based on information gathered from ground-based sources and observation data from earth observation satellites. Geographic information systems were used in this study to examine Sentinel-1 SAR images of areas on the eastern U.S. coast and the Gulf of Mexico where hurricanes made landfall between 2016 and 2022, to look for changes in the coastal morphology. For each location, three or more images were analyzed: at least one taken prior to the hurricane's landfall, one taken immediately after, and one taken at a later time after the storm had passed. After these pictures underwent a change detection process, we compared the detected changes to records of inundation, storm surge, and erosion from other sources to determine where changes had actually taken place and to what extent we were able to detect them in the SAR imagery.