Determination of Degree of Damage on Building Roofs Due to Wind Disaster from Close Range Remote Sensing Images Using Texture Wavelet Analysis

In the current era of increasing natural disasters, especially wind disasters such as tropical cyclones, tornadoes, thunder storms etc., the need for a rapid damage assessment and mitigation action became inevitable. Detecting damages on a wider perspective using remote sensing images makes the damage investigation much faster. The current work introduces the technology of texture-wavelet analysis for detection of roof damages due to cyclones and tornadoes from close range remote sensing imageries. Degree of Damage (DoD) is quantified by calculating the percentage of damaged portion of the building roofs. A positive correlation factor ranging from 0.75 to 0.80 for remote imagery with respect to the visually measured data as well as field investigation data validates the accuracy of the method. Thus depending on severity measured from the percentage area of damage determined, emergency aid and medication can be prioritized thereby aiding disaster mitigation process.