Analysis of Optical Satellite Images and Pyroclastic Flow Inundation Model for Monitoring of Pyroclastic Flow Deposit Area

Field survey research on damages caused by volcanic activities has plenty of difficulties due to human resources, safety and costs issues. Remote sensing application using satellite image is one of very useful tools to overcome those issues. In this study, we monitored the volcanic activities of Sinabung volcano in 2010, which is located in Sumatra island, Indonesia by using Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite images acquired on 17 April, 2009 and 30 July, 2012. We found that the area of pyroclastic flow inundation after 2010 has been tripled roughly, since extracting the pyroclastic flow inundation before and after 2010 eruption from classification. The result from modeling of pyroclastic flow inundation has been compared with the extracted pyroclastic flow inundation from Landsat 7 ETM+ images. As a result, we confirmed that the length of inundation area from the modeling was calculated to 92% accurate, but the width of inundation area was somewhat imprecisely estimated in the volcanic area having the sharp slope and only calculated to 17% accurate.