Post-Disaster Urban Recovery Monitoring in Pisco After the 2007 Peru Earthquake Using Satellite Image

Abstract

Pisco was the area most damaged by the 2007 Peru earthquake. The purpose of this research is to develop possibilities of using satellite imagery to monitor post-disaster urban recovery processes, focusing on the urban change in Pisco between 2007 and 2011. To this end, the authors carried out field surveys in the city in 2012 and 2013 and also examined previous surveys to determine that building reconstruction peaked between 2008 and 2009. After analyzing the five-year recovery process, the authors compared its reconstruction conditions by visual interpretation with those by image analysis using satellite image. An accuracy of 71.2% was achieved for the visual interpretation results in congested urban areas, and that for developed districts was about 60%. The result shows that satellite imagery can be a useful tool for monitoring and understanding post-disaster urban recovery processes in the areas in which conducting long-term field survey is difficult.