Improved Flood Insights: Diffusion-Based SAR to EO Image Translation
This addresses the challenge of human analysts struggling with SAR data interpretation in flood monitoring, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing image translation methods.
The paper tackles the problem of interpreting Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for flood assessment by introducing a diffusion-based framework that converts SAR to Electro-Optical (EO) images, resulting in improved visual information and enhanced performance across all tested flood segmentation baselines.
Driven by rapid climate change, the frequency and intensity of flood events are increasing. Electro-Optical (EO) satellite imagery is commonly utilized for rapid response. However, its utilities in flood situations are hampered by issues such as cloud cover and limitations during nighttime, making accurate assessment of damage challenging. Several alternative flood detection techniques utilizing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data have been proposed. Despite the advantages of SAR over EO in the aforementioned situations, SAR presents a distinct drawback: human analysts often struggle with data interpretation. To tackle this issue, this paper introduces a novel framework, Diffusion-Based SAR to EO Image Translation (DSE). The DSE framework converts SAR images into EO images, thereby enhancing the interpretability of flood insights for humans. Experimental results on the Sen1Floods11 and SEN12-FLOOD datasets confirm that the DSE framework not only delivers enhanced visual information but also improves performance across all tested flood segmentation baselines.