A difference in clarity: Left, high-resolution imagery from the commercial satellites used in the HiFLOWS project clearly shows flooded streets and wetlands. Right, older satellite imagery of the same area is too blurry to distinguish critical details.
As Arctic flooding accelerates due to climate change and current satellite systems frequently miss the peak of flood events, City College of New York scientists led by Nicholas C. Steiner have embarked on a pioneering project that addresses a critical gap in responsive flood monitoring for Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.
The High-Latitude Flood and Open Water Surveillance (HiFLOWS) project runs from 2025 to 2027 with more than $350,000 in funding from NASA’s Climate and Earth System Response to Arctic Change (CESRA) program. It will use commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) constellations to capture flood events at their peak stage. HiFLOWS will provide a model for faster disaster monitoring that could be applied beyond the Arctic.
“The October floods in western Alaska underscore why these efforts are needed. Entire communities in remote regions are at risk of fast-moving disasters,” said Steiner, research assistant professor and head of the Steiner Lab for remote sensing of terrestrial hydrology. “We are now able to capture reliable images several times a day, for situational awareness during floods as they unfold.”
HiFLOWS is one of the first studies to make use of a new generation of satellites that operate in constellations of many small-satellites (smallsats), that can make rapid observations of the surface, on demand, anywhere on earth. “Because they use radar, they can see through clouds, so we can get reliable images even during storms. Using the low latency observations, we can track fast moving floods while they are happening, something older satellite systems couldn’t do,” explained Steiner.
By working with industry partners ICEYE, Capella Space, and Umbra, the HiFLOWS team at CCNY will prototype low-latency workflows that deliver near-real-time observations of fast-moving Alaskan floods. These efforts will both advance scientific understanding of extreme hydrology and strengthen climate resilience for vulnerable northern communities.
Kyle McDonald, Terry Elkes Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and director of CCNY’s Sustainability in the Urban Environment Program, is Steiner’s co-principal investigator on the project. The CCNY team also includes one graduate student who’ll work full time on the project for its two-year duration.
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Jay Mwamba
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jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu