A hydrological and socioeconomic risk assessment of tropical cyclone disasters by leveraging space-based Earth observations

On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida as the 5th strongest tropical cyclone on record for the United States of America. Preliminary damage assessments conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated over $50 billion USD in insured and uninsured losses from the event. The extensive environmental and socioeconomic consequences of recent hydrometeorological extremes in Florida indicate an urgent need to improve understanding of hydrological and socioeconomic vulnerability in the region to inform future investments to increase resilience to events like Hurricane Ian. This study conducts an interdisciplinary risk analysis of both hydrological and socioeconomic variables before and after Hurricane Ian to improve understanding of the region’s hydrological and socioeconomic vulnerability to hydrometeorological extremes. A variety of publicly available satellite-based remote sensing data are leveraged for the hydrological analysis, specifically precipitation data from the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG), soil moisture data from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), synthetic aperture radar data from Sentinel-1, optical imagery from Landsat 8, and Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) data from the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) are utilized. Additionally, high-resolution commercial satellite data from Planet, Maxar, and Capella are used to further identify infrastructure damages from Hurricane Ian. To support the socioeconomic risk analysis, publicly available demographic and economic data are used from the U.S. Census Bureau and State of Florida. Results from this work can be used to improve understanding of hydrological and socioeconomic risk in Florida due to hydrometeorological extremes. Additionally, this work can be used to inform priorities and strategy aimed to decrease risk and increase resilience in this region towards major tropical cyclones.