Assessing Agrometeorological Damage after the 2022 Pakistan Floods: Insights from Multi-Sensor Satellite Data

The disastrous Monsoon floods from June to September in year 2022 caused extensive agricultural losses across Pakistan, particularly in the Indus Plains, that have severe consequences for food insecurity and livelihood. This research presents an integrated multi-sensor satellite assessment of post-flood crop damage in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab. We combined pre- and post-flood imagery from Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for flood extent mapping, Sentinel-2 optical data for crop cover analysis, and rainfall estimates from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. Data processing and analysis were conducted using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform, and results were validated with ground observations from the Pakistan Meteorological Department. Analytical methods included Otsu’s thresholding for flood segmentation and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) classification for crop damage assessment. Our findings reveal that approximately 2.67 million acres (13.3%) of Punjab’s cropland and 287,000 hectares (16.5%) of KP’s cultivable land were inundated, with rice being the most severely affected crop. The spatial analysis identified key flood hotspots, such as Tank, Lakki Marwat, and Dera Ismail Khan in KP, and significant losses in Punjab’s rice with 15% of Punjab’s rice-growing region being submerged, and wheat, sugarcane, and cotton also suffered significant damage. These results provide critical insights for targeted recovery, climate-resilient agricultural planning, and disaster risk reduction. This integrated approach demonstrates the value of combining high-resolution satellite data with ground observations for rapid, large-scale post-disaster assessment.