Hurricane Katrina Damage Analysis
Alex Stern and William Tran
Overview
Assess the flood extent and impact created
by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
 Examining Orleans Parish

Duke University
Initial Steps
Collect Data
 Landsat 5 images from August 25th, 2005 and
September 7th, 2005
 Extract to Orleans Parish using Arc Map,
Parish shapefile

Classification
Supervised classification for both images
 Landsat 5 bands 1,2,3,4, and 7
 Five land cover classes

 Urban,Vegetation, Wetland, Water, and Flooded
Urban
Accuracy Assessment
2005 NAIP 2m orthophoto mosaic
Class
Name
Reference
Classified
Totals
Totals Correct
Class 0
Urban
Vegetation
Wetlands
Flooded
Water
38
16
38
15
1
42
Overall Classification Accuracy =
54
25
20
24
0
27
Number
Accuracy
38
10
20
11
0
27
Producers
Accuracy
--62.50%
52.63%
73.33%
--64.29%
Users
--40.00%
100.00%
45.83%
--100.00%
70.67%
Overall Kappa Statistics = 0.6291
Class Name
Class 0
Urban
Vegetation
Wetlands
Flooded
Water
Kappa
0.6032
0.3284
1.0000
0.3981
0.0000
1.0000
*No accuracy
assessment performed
on post-storm image
Rough Estimate
Tabulated Data
Flooded Urban
Urban to Vegetation
Water to Wetlands
Tabulated Data
Change Detection
37 sq miles of flooded urban
 54 sq miles of flooded land
 Increase of water and vegetation
 Urban class lost 56 sq. miles

 Evaluated over total land area:
○ 134,585 persons displaced, 16,697 housing units damaged
 Evaluated over urban land area:
○ 281,332 persons displaced, 34,916 housing units damaged

Loss of wetlands, errors
 4 sq miles of wetlands changed to urban
Problems and Limitations
Inaccuracy of classifications
 Inaccuracy of census data interpretation and
analysis
 Limitation of area analyzed
 Technical Errors

○ ArcMap conversions
○ Differences in shapefiles
○ Multiple extractions
Real World Application
FEMA
 Military
 Insurance rates

Questions?
NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS