Rapid Extreme Tropical Precipitation and Flood Inundation Mapping Framework (RETRACE) : Initial Testing For The 2021-2022 Malaysia Flood

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Rapid Extreme Tropical Precipitation and Flood Inundation Mapping

Framework (RETRACE): Initial Testing for the 2021–2022 Malaysia Flood
Article in International Journal of Geo-Information · July 2022

DOI: 10.3390/ijgi11070378
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International Journal of
Geo-Information
Article
Rapid Extreme Tropical Precipitation and Flood Inundation
Mapping Framework (RETRACE): Initial Testing for the
2021–2022 Malaysia Flood
Yi Lin Tew 1 , Mou Leong Tan 1, * , Liew Juneng 2 , Kwok Pan Chun 3 , Mohamad Hafiz bin Hassan 4 ,
Sazali bin Osman 4 , Narimah Samat 1 , Chun Kiat Chang 5 and Muhammad Humayun Kabir 6
1 GeoInformatic Unit, Geography Section, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia,

Gelugor 11800, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia; [email protected] (Y.L.T.); [email protected] (N.S.)
2 Department of Earth Sciences and Environment, Faculty of Science and Technology,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia; [email protected]
3 Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of the West of England,
Bristol BS16 1QY, UK; [email protected]
4 National Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre, Department of Irrigation and Drainage,
Kuala Lumpur 68000, Malaysia; [email protected] (M.H.b.H.); [email protected] (S.b.O.)
5 River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Engineering Campus, Nibong Tebal 14300, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia; [email protected]
6 Department of Agricultural Extension and Information System, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University,
Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh; [email protected]
* Correspondence: [email protected]
Abstract: The 2021–2022 flood is one of the most serious flood events in Malaysian history, with
Citation: Tew, Y.L.; Tan, M.L.; Juneng, approximately 70,000 victims evacuated daily, 54 killed and total losses up to MYR 6.1 billion.
L.; Chun, K.P.; Hassan, M.H.b.; From this devastating event, we realized the lack of extreme precipitation and flood inundation
Osman, S.b.; Samat, N.; Chang, C.K.; information, which is a common problem in tropical regions. Therefore, we developed a Rapid
Kabir, M.H. Rapid Extreme Tropical
Extreme TRopicAl preCipitation and flood inundation mapping framEwork (RETRACE) by utilizing:
Precipitation and Flood Inundation
(1) a cloud computing platform, the Google Earth Engine (GEE); (2) open-source satellite images from
Mapping Framework (RETRACE):
missions such as Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), Sentinel-1 SAR and Sentinel-2 optical
Initial Testing for the 2021–2022
Malaysia Flood. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf.
satellites; and (3) flood victim information. The framework was demonstrated with the 2021–2022
2022, 11, 378. https://doi.org/ Malaysia flood. The preliminary results were satisfactory with an optimal threshold of five for flood
10.3390/ijgi11070378 inundation mapping using the Sentinel-1 SAR data, as the accuracy of inundated floods was up to
70%. Extreme daily precipitation of up to 230 mm/day was observed and resulted in an inundated
Academic Editors: Wolfgang Kainz
area of 77.43 km2 in Peninsular Malaysia. This framework can act as a useful tool for local authorities
and Godwin Yeboah
and scientists to retrace the extreme precipitation and flood information in a relatively short period
Received: 30 April 2022 for flood management and mitigation strategy development.
Accepted: 4 July 2022
Published: 7 July 2022 Keywords: flood; inundation mapping; Sentinel-1 SAR; Malaysia; climate change
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affil-
iations. 1. Introduction
As reported in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [1], the number and intensity of extreme precipitation has increased significantly in
the past few decades. Based on the Emergency Events International Disaster Database [2], a
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.
total of 5608 extreme flood events have been recorded around the world from 1906 to 2021,
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
causing about 7 million deaths, affecting 3.9 billion people and causing USD 953 billion in
This article is an open access article
total damage losses. The EM-DAT also reported increases in flood events over the years,
distributed under the terms and
particularly in the past two decades. The actual flood losses may be higher as not all
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
flood events were recorded in the EM-DAT database and the costs of damage from floods
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
are difficult to measure. Flood inundation mapping is therefore important to effectively
4.0/).
organize flood rescue operations, management, mitigation and modeling to achieve rapid
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, 378. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi11070378 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, 378 2 of 23
and effective recovery. In addition, flooded area information could also be used to measure
flood damage in cities and agricultural industries.
In Malaysia, major floods are normally found during the early phase of the northeast
monsoon (NEM) from November to January; past years of major floods include 1971,
2006–2007, 2014–2015, 2017 and 2018 [3]. Unexpected extreme precipitation events from
mid-December 2021 to early 2022 have also caused devastating floods in seven states of
Malaysia which killed 54 people, affected more than 125,000 with nearly 70,000 evacuated
on a single day and resulted in losses up to MYR 6.1 billion or USD 1.46 billion [4–6].
Surprisingly, the extreme events hit not only the east coast region of Peninsular Malaysia,
but also the west coast Peninsular Malaysia that typically experiences dry conditions during
this period, where it was noticeable from the direction of the Tropical Depression 29W [7].
Water levels of many rivers and reservoirs in Selangor surpassed their dangerous level.
More than 120 landslides occurred a few days after the extreme rains, causing the rescue
operations to become more difficult [8]. For instance, the floods and landslides caused the
Kuala Lumpur–Karak and the East Coast Expressway phase 1 (LPT1), which connects the
east coast and the west coast, to become impassable [9].
The existing flood maps available in Malaysia can be categorized into three types,
namely, flood inundation maps, flood hazard maps and flood risk maps [10]. The com-
mon practice of producing flood inundation maps in Malaysia involves the coupling of a
digital elevation model (DEM) and flood event records [11], or hydrologic and hydraulic
simulations performed using tools such as the InfoWorks Integrated Catchment Modeling
(ICM) [12]. The production of flood maps via such an approach requires a longer time for
data collection, model development and calibration. Despite the importance of near real-
time precipitation and flood inundation information, there is still a lack of a comprehensive
framework to provide rapid precipitation and flood information during extreme conditions
in tropical regions.
Satellite technologies provide a cost-effective and timely resource to capture the pre-
cipitation and flood information in a large area during flood events. Satellite precipitation
products (SPPs) have emerged as a major source for monitoring global precipitation in
the past few decades [13,14]. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, ex-
tended from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) [15], is one of the most
accurate and finest resolution SPPs to estimate precipitation in tropical regions [16]. The
Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) products are able to provide near
real-time precipitation data for the regions from 65◦ N to 65◦ S at a 30 min time-scale.
Tapiador et al. [17] utilized IMERG to study the hydro-meteorological characteristics of
the September 2019 floods in Spain and concluded that the IMERG compares well with
observations. In China, Qi et al. [18] found the IMERG Late Run (IMERG-Late) product
performs well in monitoring the extreme heavy precipitation of the super typhoon Lekima.
In Malaysia, Tan and Santo [19] reported that the IMERG products show the lowest bias in
capturing precipitation in the 2014–2015 flood events of Malaysia relative to other SPPs.
Therefore, the IMERG near real-time products can provide useful information to monitor
flood precipitation across the globe.
The European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Sentinel-
2 optical multispectral satellites are becoming popular data sources for effective flood
monitoring [20]. Flood mapping using the Sentinel data are mostly conducted in northern
temperate latitudes such as Europe, the UK and Canada [21]. In tropical areas, cloud cover
is a prevalent issue in optical satellite imagery [22]. Hence, the Sentinel-1 SAR is a preferred
satellite sensor for tropical flood monitoring due to it being cloud-free and allowing users to
extract time-critical disaster images from the ESA Sentinel Data Hub within 45 min of data
capturing [23]. Based on the literature available, the common methodology of analyzing
floods via Sentinel-1 data are through classification [24] and thresholding [25]. Thresholding
is the most common SAR-based technique for flood detection, but is only perform well in
simple flood situations and homogenous land surfaces [26] as it minimalizes classification
errors between water and land features without differentiating different land classes [25].
However, identifying an optimal threshold in the binarization and features of elevation

differencing takes time and may delay the flood inundation map generation [27], whereby
the threshold values are used as the separation value for flood pixels and non-flood pixels
in the image [28].
Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a free cloud-based computing platform that enables
users to process massive geospatial datasets rapidly using high-performance computing
resources [29]. Utilization of GEE in processing Sentinel datasets can achieve rapid flood
inundation mapping [26,30]. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to develop a Rapid
Extreme TRopicAl preCipitation and flood inundation mapping framEwork (RETRACE)
using the latest satellite technologies, GEE and flood victim information. RETRACE was
applied to study the characteristics of the precipitation and floods from the Dec 2021–Jan
2022 unexpected events in Peninsular Malaysia as a pilot study. Three specific objectives of
the study are: (1) to investigate the spatio-temporal characteristics of daily precipitation
over Peninsular Malaysia using the GPM IMERG product; (2) to identify an optimal
threshold for Sentinel-based flood inundation mapping in Malaysia; and (3) to map the
inundated flood areas for the 2021–2022 Malaysia flood event. The framework can help local
authorities to identify flooded areas, which are vital for flood management and mitigation
strategy development. One of the biggest advantages of RETRACE is the capability to
provide extreme precipitation and flood inundation information in a relatively shorter
period as compared to a traditional flood modeling framework. In addition, the identified
optimal threshold for tropical flood inundation mapping and incorporation of flood victim
information allows more accurate information to be extracted from satellite images.
2. Materials and Methods

2.1. The 2021–2022 Malaysia Flood
The 2021–2022 flood was among the most serious floods recorded in Malaysia’s
history, which involved eight states in the Peninsular: Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur,
Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang [31]. Hence, the present study
focused on the flooded areas of these largely affected states during the 2021–2022 flood
event (Figure 1). Peninsular Malaysia accounts for a majority of Malaysia’s population and
economy, with a total land area of 132.265 km2 and total population of 25.9 million (as of
the year 2021) [32].
Situated within the equatorial region, Malaysia has a tropical climate with low at-
mospheric pressure. The climate of Malaysia is uniform with three major characteristics:
constant temperature, high humidity and abundant rainfall throughout the year [33]. The
country is situated in a strategic location where it is free from natural catastrophes; however,
there are two major hydro-climatic related disasters affecting people’s livelihoods: too
much rainfall that causes floods and water shortages during the dry period [34]. Among
the two hydro-climatic-related disasters, flood is the more devasting natural disaster due
to its duration and frequency of occurrence, extent of affected area and the impact it has on
the socioeconomic development [35,36].
According to the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) in Malaysia, no formal
categorization was made to distinguish floods in Malaysia, but generally floods in Malaysia
can be categorized as monsoonal, flash or tidal floods [37], where the differentiation
between the monsoonal and flash floods depends on the period of time that the flood
water takes to recede. Flash floods are sudden and caused by unpredictable heavy rainfall,
whereas monsoonal floods occur during the monsoon seasons [38]. The 2021–2022 flood
can be categorized as a monsoonal flood that was caused by the northeast monsoon. In
fact, monsoonal floods are a regular annual natural disaster in Malaysia, with major events
having occurred in the years of 1926, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1979, 1983, 1993,
1998, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2017 and 2021 [38,39]. The northeast monsoonal floods
that happened in the past decades in Malaysia are summarized in Table 1.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of 24
Figure 1.for
Figure 1. (a) The population (a) The
each population
state inforPeninsular
each state in Peninsular
Malaysia; Malaysia; (b) location
(b) location of of Malaysia inin
Malaysia South
South
East Asia; (c) the number of victims evacuated during the flood event.
East Asia; (c) the number of victims evacuated during the flood event.
Situated within the equatorial region, Malaysia has a tropical climate with low at-
Table 1. Description ofmospheric
the floods in Malaysia
pressure. for the
The climate past decade.
of Malaysia is uniform with three major characteristics:
constant temperature, high humidity and abundant rainfall throughout the year [33]. The
Year Date country is situated in a strategic location
States where it is free from natural catastrophes;
Outcome how-
Reference
ever, there are two major hydro-climatic related disasters affecting people’s livelihoods:
too much rainfall that Triggered by aand
causes floods tropical
water depression and the dry period [34].
shortages during
Among the two hydro-climatic-related
later aggravated disasters,
by La flood
Ninaismonsoon
the more devasting natural dis-
10 October– Kedahaster due to its duration and45,000
frequency of occurrence,
2010 rains; hectares of riceextent
fieldsofwere
affected area and the im-
19 November Perlis
pact it has on the socioeconomic development [35,36].
damaged and government pledged
According to the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) in Malaysia, no formal
USD 6.5 billion to help the farmers.
categorization was made to distinguish floods in Malaysia, but generally floods in Malay-
Johorsia can be categorized as monsoonal, flash or tidal floods [37], where the differentiation
between the monsoonal and flash floods depends on the period of time that the flood
Kelantan
water takes to recede. Flash floods are sudden and caused by unpredictable heavy rainfall,
Kedahwhereas monsoonal floods occur during the monsoon seasons [38]. The 2021–2022 flood
Negeri Sembilan
can be categorized asHeavy rainfall
a monsoonal asthat
flood partwas
of caused
the northeast
by the northeast monsoon. In
Pahang monsoon.
fact, monsoonal floods The worst
are a regular annualflood in disaster
natural Kelantan in
in Malaysia, with major
15 December 2014– [36,38–40]
2014 Perakevents having occurred inhistory with
the years 202,000
of 1926, individuals
1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1979, 1983,
3 January 2015 1993, 1998, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2014,property
2017 and 2021 [38,39].
Perlis evacuated; damage ofThe northeast monsoonal
Sabahfloods that happened in the past decades
USD 560 in Malaysia
million.are summarized in Table 1.
Sarawak
Selangor
Terengganu
Caused by Tropical Depression 29W on
3 November;
2017 4–5 November Pulau Pinang
flash flood in Pulau Pinang with
maximum flood level 3.7 m.
Perak
Selangor
Kuala Lumpur
Caused by Tropical Depression 29W on
Negeri Sembilan
14–17 December. Heavy flood in four
Melaka
2021 16–31 December states and minor flood in four other states; [4,41]
Johor
government estimated total of
Pahang
USD 1.55 billion in property damage.
Terengganu
Kelantan
Sabah
2.2. Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission takes global rainfall and snow-
fall observations with a 3 h temporal resolution [16]. The mission was launched by the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japan Aerospace Explo-
ration Agency (JAXA) via the Core Observatory (GPM CO) satellite on 28 February 2014,
and it was designed as a dual-frequency precipitation radar for precise rainfall measure-
ments. With the sophisticated satellite instrumentation and integrated user applications,
the public release of the precipitation product can be acquired in near real-time at 1–5 h
post-processing of downlinked observations to ground stations [42].
IMERG is a US GPM Science Team precipitation product that applies intercalibrated
estimates over various international constellations of precipitation satellites and conducts
monthly surface precipitation gauge analyses to compute higher temporal (half-hourly)
and spatial (0.1◦ × 0.1◦ ) resolutions [43,44]. These characteristics of IMERG precipitation
products are advantageous in extreme studies of precipitation globally [21].
2.3. Sentinel Satellites

The Sentinel program is a mission under the European Space Agency [45]. The
Sentinel mission operates based on radar and super-spectral imaging for land, ocean
and atmospheric monitoring. The data processor includes the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission (SRTM) 1 arc-second data for terrain and radiometric corrections that increases the
ease and readiness of Sentinel data for analyzation. The strengths of the data are the ability
for it to produce global, continuous and wide-coverage satellite imaging products.
Comprising a constellation of two polar orbiting satellites, the Sentinel-1 mission
operates day and night, capturing C-band SAR imagery in all weather. The C-band imaging
operating in the Sentinel-1 mission captures the earth with coverage up to 400 km and a
spatial resolution of 10 m. The foremost advantage of utilizing the Sentinel-1 SAR data
in flood mapping is that the sensor can capture images at wavelengths beyond the cloud
cover and thick, moist vegetation cover, regardless if its day- or nighttime [46]. The datasets
available in the GEE platform that match with the flood incident in each state for this study
are listed in Table 2.
Table 2. The number of available Sentinel datasets in GEE for each state during the 2021–2022 flood
in Malaysia.
State Flood Date Available Datasets

Pahang 17–31 December 868
Selangor 17–31 December 534
Negeri Sembilan 18–31 December 204
Melaka 17–25 December 199
Johor 05–31 December 708
Terengganu 02–31 December 651
Kelantan 17–31 December 589
Perak 19–21 December 852
The Level-1 Ground Range Detected (GRD) product level data were utilized for water
surface detection under the Interferometric Wide Swath (IW) scanning mode, where the
phase information was not included. The acquired Sentinel-1 images were 10 m × 10 m
spatial resolution, with polarization configuration types vertical–horizontal (VH) and
vertical–vertical (VV) [47]. The Level-1 GRD products is a package of a dataset that
comprises focused SAR data that have been detected, multi-looked and projected to the
ground range using the Earth ellipsoid model [23].
Backscattering of the GRD products has been widely used in land cover studies and
water body monitoring [48]. Theoretically, VH has a stronger return over areas with
volume scattering, whereas VV has a stronger return over specular scattering. Thus, both
polarization configurations are used to enhance the band information [49]. SAR images
are often used to map calm and open water surfaces because water surface is recorded as
reflected specular incident microwave radiation [50].
2.4. RETRACE
The overall workflow of RETRACE is shown in Figure 2. The Sentinel-1 SAR GRD
data were used to generate the flood inundation areas, whereas the Sentinel-2 MSI data
were used to collect the ground truth of the flooded area for the purpose of validation. The
GPM IMERG Late Run data were used to perform rainfall analysis throughout Peninsular
Malaysia during the flood event. The workflow of the processing can be explained in
five major steps: (1) pre-processing of the Sentinel-1 and -2 data including subsets of
areas of interest, mosaicking, geometric correction, noise removal, etc.; (2) identification
of seriously affected areas based on the GPM IMERG precipitation data and flood victim
evacuation data; (3) generation of Sentinal-1 SAR flood inundation maps and collection
of observed flood data from both sky (Sentinel-2 optical satellite) and ground (site visit);
and (4) validation of the flood inundation maps with the observed data. 7The
PRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW process was
of 24
repeated for flood inundation mapping in other affected states.
Figure 2. General
Figureframework of rapid flood
2. General framework inundation
of rapid mapping with
flood inundation Sentinel
mapping SAR.
with Sentinel SAR.
The inundation extent of extent

The inundation the 2021–2022 Malaysia
of the 2021–2022 flood was
Malaysia extracted
flood via anvia
was extracted auto-
an automated
mated thresholding method in the GEE platform, where the results are accessible
thresholding method in the GEE platform, where the results are accessible by by thethe public.
public. Earth observation satellite data provide a precise and cost-effective tool for as-
sessing and monitoring hydrological dynamics of the earth’s surface. As such, multispec-
tral and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite images are advantageous for precipita-
tion monitoring and flood mapping due to their high spatial and temporal resolution char-
acteristics [51]. In the present study, data from two satellites were used to map the flood
Earth observation satellite data provide a precise and cost-effective tool for assessing and
monitoring hydrological dynamics of the earth’s surface. As such, multispectral and Syn-
thetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite images are advantageous for precipitation monitoring
and flood mapping due to their high spatial and temporal resolution characteristics [51].
In the present study, data from two satellites were used to map the flood inundation area
throughout the study area: Sentinel-1 SAR images and Sentinel-2 MSI images, where the
data are freely accessible via the GEE.
Besides Sentinel data, the Global Administrative Unit Layers 2015 (GAUL), JRC Global
Surface Water Mapping Layers, and the WWF HydroSHEDS Void-Filled DEM data in
the GEE Data Catalog were also utilized in this study. GAUL is a reliable, global first-
level administrative boundary layer made available by the United Nation (UN) Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) and disseminated based on the 2015 global data [52]. The
Global Surface Water Mapping Layers developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of
the European Commission (EC) is a global surface water map generated with 4,453,989
Landsat 5, 7, and 8 scenes acquired from 16 March 1984 to 31 December 2020 [53]. Lastly,
the HydroSHEDS was developed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and is an elevation
hydrographic mapping product at a global scale generated by the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission (SRTM) at a spatial resolution of 3 arc-seconds [54].
2.4.1. Pre-Processing of Sentinel Data

The pre-processing of the Sentinel-1 and -2 datasets included the geometric and
radiometric corrections. The Sentinel-1 GRD dataset was retrieved from the GEE platform
via instrument mode and received polarization VH, where the date range was set on the
driest month of the state for the before-flood period, and the flood dates as stated in Table 1
for the during-flood period.
Then, the dataset was subset with the FAO GAUL data to the extent of each state in
Peninsular Malaysia. Radiometric calibration and speckle filtering was conducted at this
point, as it is essential to obtain the backscatter values [55]. The radiometrically calibrated
images were computed with the radar backscattering coefficient (σ◦ ) associated with SAR
image brightness (β ◦ ) using the formula:
σ◦ = β ◦ . sin α (1)
where α is the local incidence angle [28,56]. The return scattering coefficient, σ◦ , is calculated
in decibels [56]:
σ◦ (dB) = 10 log 10(σ◦ ) (2)
With this, the radar backscattering values can be evaluated using the formula proposed
by Laur et al. [56]:

σ◦ (dB) = β ◦ (dB) + 10 log 10 sin i p )/ sin(ic )] (3)
β ◦ (dB) = 20 log 10(DN) − K(dB) (4)

where:
“i p ” denotes the pixel’s angle of incidence;
“ic ” denotes the image center’s angle of incidence;
“K” denotes the calibration constant of the SAR image.
Then, the smoothing technique was performed to filter out the speckle by eliminating
the granular noise that would increase the clarity of the image through application of a
speckle filtering window [57]. The process of improving the texture of the SAR image
requires computation of Haralick features [58]; thus, we tested different values to observe
the dissimilarity. However, the dissimilarity was not presented; thus, the 5 × 5 window
adopted in this study is optimal to optimize the tradeoff between computational time,
robustness to outliers and edge preservation [59]. Therefore, the speckle filtering smoothing
radius was set at 25 for this study.
2.4.2. Precipitation and Flood Victim Analysis

Basically, IMERG data can be divided into Early Run, Late Run and Final products,
which are available ~4 h, ~12 h and ~2 months after capturing the earth surface. The IMERG
Late Run product downloaded from the NASA Giovanni online tool (https://giovanni.
gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/ (accessed on 11 January 2022)) was used to analyze the spatio-
temporal changes of the daily precipitation for Peninsular Malaysia from 15 December 2021
to 7 January 2022. The quality of the IMERG Late Run product is slighter better than the
Early Run version due to the calibration scheme in the algorithm; therefore, it is more
appropriate for the flood precipitation analysis. This precipitation analysis is conducted
to identify the amount of the daily precipitation that has led to the flood in each state of
Peninsular Malaysia. IMERG-Late was used to study the spatial and temporal changes
of daily precipitation over Malaysia from 17 December 2021 to 10 January 2022 as the
explanatory variable to further illustrate the relationship between the climate-induced
surface water and flooding extent [60].
The National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) of Malaysia developed a
disaster portal (https://portalbencana.nadma.gov.my/ (accessed on 11 January 2022)) for
reporting the number of flood victims from time to time. At least 89,723 victims were
affected daily by the flood in December 2021 [61]. For example, the number of flood victims
evacuated from their houses was increased significantly to about 70,000 people per day for
three consecutive days since 21 December 2021 (Figure 1c). The second peak of flood victim
evacuation was found from 3 to 5 January 2022 due to the second wave of flooding in the
state of Johor. The number of flood victims for every state was recorded from the disaster
portal from 17 December 2021 to 10 January 2022, and then converted to maps using the
ArcMAP 10.4 software.
2.4.3. Flood Inundation Mapping

One of the most efficient and simple approaches for image binarization is through
thresholding [62]. In this study, the thresholding was applied via the GEE function that
was built from the Otsu’s method for image segmentation [63]. Otsu’s method is the most
widely applied thresholding approach, as it detects the optimum threshold automatically
based on the observed distribution of pixel values [64]. In the case of this study, the concept
threshold was set in the image processing codes to determine the optimum threshold from
the maximization of the between-class variance of the water pixels and the non-water pixels.
The JRC Global Surface Water Mapping Layers was incorporated into the image search
result to identify the permanent water areas (sea, rivers and lakes) that exist in the study
area which would be classified as flooded surfaces. A threshold of 1.25 was set to extract
the Sentinel-1-classified water bodies that, outside the range of the permanent water body,
are considered inundated areas, as we were trying to facilitate the detection of flooded
surfaces to the pixels with a difference ratio of 0.25 [62]. Then, the WWF HydroSHEDS
Void-Filled DEM was utilized to filter the inundation result based on the condition that if
the area had a slope larger than 0.5%, it was eliminated from the final inundation result
due to the extended nature of the flooded area beings mainly flat surfaces.
In flood mapping, the change detection process is performed to analyze the difference
between the images for the pre- and post-flood event [62]. As for this study, the processed
Sentinel-1 image captured during the flood event was compared with the image captured
during the driest month over the region (15–26 February 2021). The pre-flood image was
set to obtain any permanent water surfaces over the region, of which this information was
later used to mask the overlapping water pixels found on the post-flood image, and the
unmasked water pixels were the final inundated extent.
2.4.4. Accuracy Assessment

For the accuracy assessment of the inundation map produced by the Sentinel-1 images,
the inundated areas generated by both Sentinel images were cross validated by using the
Combine tool in the ArcMap 10.4. This process was conducted for the Pahang and Selangor

states only due to the availability of the cloudless data from the Sentinel-2 sensor during
the flood period as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Before- and during-flood satellite images captured by (a,b) Sentinel-2 MSI and (c,d) Senti-
Figure 3. Before- and during-flood satellite images captured by (a,b) Sentinel-2 MSI and (c,d) Sentinel-
nel-1 SAR in Kuantan city, Pahang.
1 SAR in Kuantan city, Pahang.
The accuracy
The accuracy was assessed on
was assessed on aa pixel-by
pixel-by pixel basis for
pixel basis the “flooded”
for the “flooded” pixel
pixel (“0”
(“0” for
for
non-flooded pixels and “1” for flooded pixels [60]). However, the background
non-flooded pixels and “1” for flooded pixels [60]). However, the background class “0” is class “0” is
the majority in a flood mapping and it might cause overestimation in
the majority in a flood mapping and it might cause overestimation in the accuracy of the the accuracy of the
correctly mapped
correctly mapped non-flooded
non-floodedpixels
pixels[62];
[62];thus,
thus,only
onlythetheflooded
flooded pixels
pixels were
were considered
considered in
in the
the accuracy
accuracy assessment.
assessment.
As for
As for the
the validation
validation purposes,
purposes, the flooded area
the flooded area ground
ground truth
truth points
points were
were obtained
obtained
from the
from the Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2 MSI
MSI data
data as
as it it was
was the
the best-fit
best-fit dataset
dataset available
available inin terms
terms of of temporal
temporal
and spatial
spatial resolution
resolutionduring
duringthetheflood
floodevent.
event.Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2isisa ahigh-spatial-resolution
high-spatial-resolution opti-
optical
cal sensor under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
sensor under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative by ESA, where initiative by ESA,
where
it it provides
provides global
global earth earthinformation
surface surface information in 13 multispectral
in 13 multispectral bands thatbands
cover thethatvisible,
cover
the visible,
near infrared near
andinfrared and infrared
shortwave shortwave infrared
range [65]. range [65].
The Sentinel-2 Level-1B product was used in this study by retrieving the Copernicus
Sentinel-2 Surface
Sentinel-2 SurfaceReflectance
Reflectanceimage
imagecollection
collectionininthethe
GEEGEE platform,
platform, where
where it was
it was radio-
radiomet-
metric
ric and and geometric
geometric corrected
corrected [66]. [66]. The images
The images from from
15 to 15 to 31 December
31 December 2021 were2021 retrieved
were re-
trieved
for a 50% forcloud-masked
a 50% cloud-masked
mosaic mosaic
image over imagetheover the Peninsular
whole whole Peninsular Malaysia,
Malaysia, where where
a total
of 123 images
a total were composited
of 123 images and mosaicked
were composited to formto
and mosaicked the image
form thescene.
imageThe combination
scene. The com-
bination of bands 8 (visible and near infrared), 3 (green) and 2 (blue) was selected to vis-
ualize the water content in the image to extract the flooded area.
of bands 8 (visible and near infrared), 3 (green) and 2 (blue) was selected to visualize the
water content in the image to extract the flooded area.
Unfortunately,due
Unfortunately, duetotothe
thelimited
limitedavailability
availability of of
thethe Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2 image
image during
during the the pe-
period,
riod,flooded
the the flooded area points
area points were managed
were only only managed to be collected
to be collected for thefor the Pahang
Pahang and Se-
and Selangor
langor A
states. states.
total Aof total of 75were
75 points points were collected
collected from thefrom the Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2 image based image onbased on the
the random
random sampling
sampling method on method on thesurfaces.
the flooded flooded surfaces.
Besides the Besides
floodthe flood collected
location location collected
from the
from the Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2 optical
optical data, data,utilized
we also we alsotheutilized the observed
observed flood dataflood data collected
collected by the
by the National
National
Flood Flood Forecasting
Forecasting and Warningand Center
Warning(PRABN),
Center (PRABN),
DID. TheDID. The locations
locations where floodingwhere
flooding occurred
occurred during the during the 2021–2022
2021–2022 flood event,flood event,inmostly
mostly in the residential
the residential areas, were areas,
usedwere
for
the
usedvalidation purpose.purpose.
for the validation The observed flood data
The observed were
flood collected
data by DID by
were collected officers on-site
DID officers
when
on-sitethe
whenflood receded.
the The dataThe
flood receded. provided by PRABN
data provided was thenwas
by PRABN filtered
thento select only
filtered the
to select
data
only that had the
the data thatcommon
had therecord
common timerecord
as the time
Sentinel images,
as the whereas
Sentinel images,in this study, in
whereas a total
this
of 275 matched
study, a total of flood recordsflood
275 matched wererecords
adoptedwere for the validation
adopted for thepurpose
validation over the Pahang
purpose over
(142 points) and
the Pahang (142Selangor (133Selangor
points) and points) states. Therefore,
(133 points) a total
states. of 350 points
Therefore, a total (75ofpoints from
350 points
Sentinel-2 and 275
(75 points from points from
Sentinel-2 site points
and 275 visits) were
from used in validating
site visits) were usedthein Sentinel-1
validating SARtheflood
Sen-
inundation
tinel-1 SAR mapsflood as shown inmaps
inundation Figureas4.shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Figure 4. Spatial
Spatial distribution
distribution of
of the
the 2021–2022
2021–2022 Malaysia
Malaysia flood
flood events
events collected
collected from
from the
the Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2
MSI image and observed flood locations.
MSI image and observed flood locations.
The critical success index (CSI) was used as the indicator to assess the performance performance
of the
the flood
floodinundation
inundationmapping
mappingofofthe theSARSAR images,
images,as we wanted
as we wantedto assess onlyonly
to assess the cor-
the
rectly mapped
correctly mapped flood pixels
flood rather
pixels thanthan
rather the correctly classified
the correctly non-flooded
classified pixels
non-flooded [62]. [62].
pixels The
CSI is
The a suitable
CSI performance
is a suitable indicator
performance for comparing
indicator the performance
for comparing of different
the performance classi-
of different
fication algorithms
classification on the
algorithms onsame image
the same rather
image than than
rather classification of flooding
classification between
of flooding betweendif-
ferent catchments or a difference of flood magnitudes [67]. The latter is
different catchments or a difference of flood magnitudes [67]. The latter is computed as computed as in
in [68]:
[68]:
tp
CSI = CSI = (5)
( S2 +
( PRABN ))
(5)
where is the correctly classified flooded pixels, S2 is the number of flood points col-
lected from the Sentinel-2 image and PRABN is the flood location that was provided by
DID.
3.1. Flood Victim Analysis
According to the flood victim evacuation reported by NADMA [61], the victims
started to be evacuated to the relief centers beginning on 17 December 2021 (Figure 5). The
spatial distribution of the evacuated flood victims shows the victims evacuated in Pahang
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, 378 increased drastically from less than 500 on 17 December 2021 to more than 30,000 people 11 of 23
on 23 December 2021. Meanwhile, the number of evacuees in Selangor also rose from less
than 10,000 people on 19 December 2021 to more than 30,000 people on 23 December 2021
due
where to the
t p issubsiding floods
the correctly [5]. Based
classified on the
flooded floodS2report,
pixels, there were
is the number a totalpoints
of flood of 685collected
tempo-
rary relief centers set up across Peninsular Malaysia during the
from the Sentinel-2 image and PRABN is the flood location that was provided by DID. flood event, with the most
in Pahang (382 centers). In Malaysia, the flood victim relief centers were managed by the
3. Results of Social Welfare [69]. The relocation of the victims to the relief centers was
Department
3.1. Flood Victim
organized Analysis
by governmental and non-governmental agencies, based on the conditional
analysis performed by the authorities
According to the flood victim evacuation according to the physical
reported factors, i.e.,
by NADMA [61],current water
the victims
level,
startednumber of victimstofor
to be evacuated theeach
reliefrelief center,
centers and capacity
beginning and quantity
on 17 December 2021 of the aid
(Figure 5). and
The
materials that couldof
spatial distribution bethesupplied.
evacuated flood victims shows the victims evacuated in Pahang
The statistics
increased of from
drastically the evacuated
less than 500 flood
onvictims collected
17 December 2021were
to moreusedthan
to validate the reli-
30,000 people on
ability of the flood
23 December 2021. inundation
Meanwhile,map generated
the number in this study
of evacuees temporally
in Selangor and spatially.
also rose The
from less than
flood
10,000victim
peopleanalysis narrowed2021
on 19 December the data search
to more thanof30,000
Sentinel-1
peopleandon-223for the generation
December 2021 due of
the flood
to the inundation
subsiding floodsextent, as only
[5]. Based data
on the from
flood the there
report, peak were
of thea total
floodofevent day was
685 temporary
relief centers
adopted. Floodsetvictim
up across Peninsular
analysis Malaysiacomponent
is an important during the in flood
flood event, with the most
management, as it in
is
Pahang
the (382 centers).
first statistic to referIntoMalaysia,
for analyzing the flood victim of
the severity relief centers
the flood werespatially
event managed by the
[70].
Department
ReferringoftoSocial
Figure Welfare
5, it can[69]. The relocation
be seen that the flood of the victims
victims to the
in the reliefTerengganu
Pahang, centers was
organized
and Kelantan by states
governmental
began toand non-governmental
evacuate on 17 December agencies, based
2021 with lessonthan
the 500
conditional
victims
analysis performed by the authorities according to the physical
from each state. The evacuation continued to involve the neighboring states, and Pahang factors, i.e., current water
level, number of victims for each relief center, and capacity and
and Selangor reached more than 3000 victims evacuated on 23 December 2021. This infor- quantity of the aid and
materials that could be supplied.
mation was used for SAR-based flood inundation mapping.
Figure 5.
Figure Spatial distribution
5. Spatial distribution of
of evacuated
evacuated flood
flood victims
victims in
in Peninsular
Peninsular Malaysia
Malaysia from
from 19
19 December
December
2021 to 10 January 2022.
2021 to 10 January 2022.
The statistics of the evacuated flood victims collected were used to validate the relia-
bility of the flood inundation map generated in this study temporally and spatially. The
flood victim analysis narrowed the data search of Sentinel-1 and -2 for the generation of
the flood inundation extent, as only data from the peak of the flood event day was adopted.
Flood victim analysis is an important component in flood management, as it is the first
statistic to refer to for analyzing the severity of the flood event spatially [70].
Referring to Figure 5, it can be seen that the flood victims in the Pahang, Terengganu
and Kelantan states began to evacuate on 17 December 2021 with less than 500 victims from
eachREVIEW
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER state. The
evacuation continued to involve the neighboring states, and Pahang and
13 of 24
Selangor reached more than 3000 victims evacuated on 23 December 2021. This information
was used for SAR-based flood inundation mapping.
3.2. Extreme Precipitation Analysis
3.2. Extreme Precipitation Analysis
Extreme precipitation is the leading factor of flooding in the tropics [71]. The unex-
Extreme precipitation is the leading factor of flooding in the tropics [71]. The unex-
pected
pected extreme precipitationover
extreme precipitation overPeninsular
PeninsularMalaysia
Malaysiafrom
from1515December
December 2021
2021 toto 7 Janu-
7 January
ary
20222022
waswas analyzed
analyzed to identify
to identify the number
the number of days
of days andvolume
and the the volume of rainfall
of rainfall across across
the re-
the region (refer to Figures 6 and 7). There was a significant sprout of the
gion (refer to Figures 6 and 7). There was a significant sprout of the precipitation beginning precipitation
beginning from 16 December
from 16 December 2021 over the 2021states
over of
thePahang,
states ofSelangor
Pahang,andSelangor and Kelantan.
Kelantan. Particularly Par-
in
ticularly in plot F of Figure 6, it can be seen that daily precipitation in Selangor
plot F of Figure 6, it can be seen that daily precipitation in Selangor on the 17 December on the 17
December 2021 was the
2021 was quintuple quintuple
amountthe of amount of the day
the day before. Thebefore.
copiousThe copious
amount amountfor
of rainfall of these
rain-
fall
twofor these
states two states
continued continued
until until 21
21 December December
2021, 2021,
resulting resulting
in an increaseininannumber
increaseofinvictims
num-
ber of victims evacuated. Besides that, more extreme precipitation
evacuated. Besides that, more extreme precipitation was observed on 31 December 2021 was observed on 31
December 2021 due to thunderstorms and heavy rain, but there was no
due to thunderstorms and heavy rain, but there was no flood victim evacuation reported inflood victim evac-
uation
Selangor reported in Selangor
since the event wassince the concentrated
mostly event was mostly concentrated
on the on the
east coast and east coast
southern partsand
of
southern parts of Peninsular
Peninsular Malaysia (Figure 6). Malaysia (Figure 6).
Figure 6.
Figure Temporalchanges
6.Temporal changes
of of daily
daily precipitation
precipitation overover Malaysia
Malaysia fromfrom 15 December
15 December 2021
2021 to to 7
7 Janu-
ary 2022.2022.
January
The past precipitation trend and precipitation-related extremes on the east coast
of Peninsular Malaysia (Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan) were studied by Mayowa
et al. [47] and revealed that there is an increasing trend of the precipitation and precipitation-
related extremes in the region over the past 40 years (1971 to 2010). In Pahang (refer to
plots C and G), the current study period shows that the intensified precipitation began on
15 December 2021, with the coastal part of Pahang having 50 mm higher daily precipitation
(plot C) than the central part of Pahang (plot G). Another notable precipitation sprout
in Pahang was on 30 December 2021. This event caused another wave of floods in the
state due to the overflowing water levels in the Lipis River and Serting River in central
Pahang [72].
ISPRS Int.
ISPRS Int. J.J. Geo-Inf.
Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x378
2022, 11, FOR PEER REVIEW 1413of
of 24
23
Figure
Figure 7.
7. Spatial
Spatial changes
changes of
of daily
daily precipitation
precipitation over
over Peninsular
Peninsular Malaysia
Malaysia from
from 17
17 December
December 2021
2021 to
to
10 January 2022.
10 January 2022.
The
The past precipitation trend
above-mentioned second and precipitation-related
wave of flooding also hit extremes on state
the Johor the east coast
(plot D). of
A
Peninsular Malaysia (Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan) were studied by
precipitation extreme was recorded from 31 December 2021 to 2 January 2022, with daily Mayowa et al.
[47] and revealed
precipitation above that
100there
mm.isThis
an increasing
event causedtrend of the in
flooding precipitation and precipitation-
northern Johor, leading to the
related extremes
displacement in the
of 1646 region
victims over
[73]. the pastJohor
However, 40 years
was (1971 to 2010).
the latest Inbe
state to Pahang (refer
affected to
by the
plots
flood,Cafter
and Negeri
G), the Sembilan,
current study periodand
Kelantan shows that the intensified
Terengganu on the same precipitation began on
day [74]. Meanwhile,
15
theDecember 2021,
precipitation with the
extreme coastal on
observed part
31of Pahang having
December 2021 for50Kelantan
mm higher daily
(plot precipita-
A) resulted in
tion (plot C) than the central part of Pahang (plot G). Another
1129 victims being evacuated due to overflowing of the Kelantan River. notable precipitation sprout
in Pahang was on 30 December 2021. This event caused another wave of floods in the state
Referring to the spatial changes of the daily precipitation in Figure 7 and the evac-
uation statistics in Figure 4, it is indicated that flood events mostly happened when the
precipitation exceeded 100 mm per day. The finding was matched with the study con-
ducted by Tan et al. [13], whereby the extreme flood events in the years of 2006/2007 in the
Kelantan, Pahang and Johor states were due to daily precipitation of over 100 mm.
3.3. Accuracy Assessment of Flood Inundation Maps

Due to the availability of cloud-free data from Sentinel-2 images during the flood
event, an accuracy assessment was performed only for the Pahang and Selangor states. The
accuracy assessment for the inundation mapping of Pahang and Selangor at thresholds of
3-, 4-, and 5-pixel inclusion for distance between the inundated area and the preliminary
water surface are shown in Table 3. Both states achieved the best inundation mapping
performance when a threshold of 5 was used. Therefore, the same processing approach
was adopted for the other states for inundation mapping purposes. The observed flood
locations provided by DID were mostly in the residential areas, whereas the flooded areas
collected from Sentinel-2 were larger and fall on open spaces and vegetated areas such as
rubber estates.
Table 3. Accuracy for each threshold value for Pahang and Selangor states.
Threshold (Pixel) Pahang (%) Selangor (%)

3 68.75 61.25
4 69.45 61.88
5 70.20 62.80
3.4. Flood Inundation Mapping for the 2021–2022 Malaysia Flood

The analysis of the Sentinel-1 SAR data shows that the 2021–2022 flood led to the flood-
ing of eight states at a total of 77.435 km2 . It can be observed that the inundated areas were
located downstream of the major rivers, especially in the low-lying areas. Kelantan state
had the greatest area flooded (32.32 km2 ), followed by Pahang (28.87 km2 ), Johor (8.25 km2 )
and Selangor (7.24 km2 ). The total flooded area for each state is tabulated in Table 4 below.
Based on the Sentinel-1 SAR-extracted inundated area, the most flooded states during the
2021–2022 Malaysia flood were Pahang (Figure 8), Selangor (Figure 9), Kelantan (Figure 10)
and Johor (Figure 11), as compared to the other states with an inundated area of <1 km2 .
In Pahang state, the inundated area is distributed around the Pahang River, with Pekan
district as the most severely flooded district (16.32 km2 ), followed by Rompin (5.09 km2 )
and Kuantan (4.21 km2 ). The extracted inundated area for Temerloh was 0.77 km2 . The
majority of the flooded area in Pahang was residential in low-lying regions that are situated
along the riverside. However, although Pahang had the highest number of evacuees, it was
not the most flooded state by the total area flooded.
As for Selangor, the most severely flooded district was Kuala Selangor (4.28 km2 ),
where the affected area was mostly residential and industrial. The extracted inundated
area for Sabak Bernam was 0.77 km2 , Kuala Lumpur was 0.014 km2 , Kuala Langat was
0.95 km2 and Ulu Selangor was 0.1 km2 .
In Kelantan, the inundated area was clustered at the northern part, downstream of the
Kelantan River, with Pasir Mas as the most flooded district (11.76 km2 ). Kota Bharu, the
capital city of Kelantan was flooded 11.29 km2 , followed by Pasir Puteh at 4.4 km2 , Tumpat
at 1.46 km2 , Machang at 0.73 km2 and Tanah Merah at 0.43 km2 .
Table 4. Flood inundated areas in the selected states of Peninsular Malaysia from December 2021 to
January 2022.
Flooded Area Flooded Area by

State District Figure
(km2 ) District (km2 )
Kuantan 4.21 Figure 8b
Temerloh 0.77 Figure 8d
Rompin 5.09 Figure 8f
Raub 0.02
Pekan 16.32 Figure 8c,e
Pahang
28.87 Maran 1.14
(Figure 8a)
Lipis 0.02
Jerantut 0.72
Cameron 0.01
Bera 0.54
Bentong 0.03
Gombak 0.06 Figure 9
Klang 0.52
Kuala Selangor 4.28 Figure 9c
Petaling 0.12
Selangor
7.24 Sabak Bernam 0.77 Figure 9b
(Figure 9a)
Sepang 0.43
Ulu Langat 0.01
Ulu Selangor 0.1 Figure 9f
Kuala Langat 0.95 Figure 9e
Bachok 2.24
Kota Bharu 11.29 Figure 10d
Kuala Krai 0.01
Kelantan Pasir Mas 11.76 Figure 10b
32.32
(Figure 10a) Pasir Puteh 4.4 Figure 10e
Tanah Merah 0.43 Figure 10f
Tumpat 1.46 Figure 10c
Machang 0.73 Figure 10f
Kota Tinggi 0.54
Batu Pahat 1.6 Figure 11d
Mersing 0.38 Figure 11c
Muar 0.17
Johor Pontian 0.44
8.25
(Figure 11a) Segamat 2.61 Figure 11b
Johor Bahru 0.23 Figure 11f
Kluang 1.5 Figure 11e
Kulai 0.07
Tangkak 0.71
Kuala Lumpur 0.014
Jasin 0.27
Melaka 0.63 Melaka Tengah 0.1
Alor Gajah 0.26
Kuala Pilah 0.005
Negeri Sembilan 0.031 Seremban 0.004
Tampin 0.01
Bagan Datuk 0.02
Perak 0.08 Batang Padang 0.01
Muallim 0.05
the Kelantan River, with Pasir Mas as the most flooded district (11.76 km2). Kota Bharu,
the capital city of Kelantan was flooded 11.29 km2, followed by Pasir Puteh at 4.4 km2,
Tumpat at 1.46 km2, Machang at 0.73 km2 and Tanah Merah at 0.43 km2.
The most inundated district in Johor was Segamat (2.61 km2), which is located in the
southern part of Johor. Besides that, Mersing was recorded with flooding of 0.38 km2, Batu
Pahat had flooding of 1.6 km2, Kluang had flooding of 1.5 km2, and Johor Bahru, the cap-
ital city of Johor, was flooded 0.23 km .
2

Figure 8.
Figure 8. Flood
Flood inundation
inundation maps
maps of
of Pahang
Pahang during
during the
the 2021–2022
Malaysia flood.
flood.
Figure
Figure 9.
9. Flood
Flood inundation
inundation maps
maps of
of Selangor
Selangor during
during the
the 2021–2022
Malaysia flood.
flood.
Figure 9. Flood inundation maps of Selangor during the 2021–2022 Malaysia flood.

Figure 10.
Figure 10. Flood
Flood inundation
inundation maps
maps of
of Kelantan
Kelantan during
during the
the 2021–2022
Malaysia flood.
flood.
Figure
Figure 11.
11. Flood
Flood inundation
inundation maps
maps of
of Johor
Johor during
during the
the 2021–2022 Malaysia flood.
2021–2022 Malaysia flood.
4. Discussion
4.1. GPM Precipitation Analysis
GPM IMERG products have been applied to study flash floods and monsoonal floods
around the world. Based on the precipitation changes observed by the GPM satellites,
extremely heavy daily precipitation of up to 230 mm/day was recorded over Selangor
from 17 to 19 December 2021 (Figure 5). Please note that the GPM IMERG near real-time
products tended to underestimate daily precipitation in Malaysia during the 2014–2015
The most inundated district in Johor was Segamat (2.61 km2 ), which is located in the
southern part of Johor. Besides that, Mersing was recorded with flooding of 0.38 km2 , Batu
Pahat had flooding of 1.6 km2 , Kluang had flooding of 1.5 km2 , and Johor Bahru, the capital
city of Johor, was flooded 0.23 km2 .
4. Discussion
4.1. GPM Precipitation Analysis
GPM IMERG products have been applied to study flash floods and monsoonal floods
around the world. Based on the precipitation changes observed by the GPM satellites,
extremely heavy daily precipitation of up to 230 mm/day was recorded over Selangor
from 17 to 19 December 2021 (Figure 5). Please note that the GPM IMERG near real-time
products tended to underestimate daily precipitation in Malaysia during the 2014–2015
flood by 3.09 to 24.19% [19]. Therefore, the actual precipitation amount that reached the
ground surface during the 2021–2022 flood may be higher than the ones observed by the
GPM IMERG Late Run product. A comprehensive validation of the GPM IMERG and
other satellite precipitation products in capturing the extreme precipitation (up to hourly
assessment) during flood periods over Malaysia should be conducted in the future.
Meanwhile, the precipitation analysis for the 2021–2022 Malaysia flood event is con-
sistent with the results reported by Mayowa et al. [72] and Liang et al. [75], in which
an extreme flood event happens in the east coast part of Peninsular Malaysia when the
daily precipitation exceeds 100 mm per day. Extreme precipitation and flood events have
increased significantly in terms of frequency and intensity in tropical regions. Hence,
proper mitigations and strategies for flood management need to be made to deal with
the increasing trend of extreme flood events in Malaysia [76], and flood inundation maps
produced from Sentinel-1 SAR could be an extremely useful source for comparing with the
flood modeling outputs.
4.2. The 2021–2022 Malaysia Flood

During the past flood events, the Mineral and Geoscience Department reported a total
of 121 landslides occurred nationwide, following the yellow alert for continuous rain by
the Malaysian Meteorological Department [4]. The topography of Peninsular Malaysia is
hilly in the central spine and flat towards the coastal lines, where landslides that happen
along the Pahang and Langat Rivers are believed to contribute to the cause of the flood
event [8]. The landslides carried debris and formed debris streams across several major
rivers in Peninsular Malaysia and, thus, led to the flood. In this study, we identified the
extent and total area flooded for each state through analyzing Sentinel-1 SAR images. The
results showed the flooded areas were mostly saturated along the major river, whereby
the areas were lower in terms of elevation. Kelantan had the largest area flooded among
the other states, whereas Pahang had the greatest number of victims evacuated during
the flood.
The idea of mapping flood inundation with SAR images can solve the challenges of
producing real-time flood extent information when it is hard to access the flooded area.
In fact, many tropical countries do not own remote sensing satellites that allow them
to fully operate or control the satellite for monitoring disasters in their own land. This
study can provide useful references for the authorities and decision makers in Malaysia
for future flood hazard management with remote sensing technologies. The ability of
SAR images to capture real-time flood areas at a large scale adds value in flood mapping,
especially for remote areas [57]. Sentinel-1 SAR is a free and open-source SAR dataset
for various applications on the GEE platform and is beneficial for the public to assess
geographical issues.
4.3. Limitations of the Study

Nevertheless, there are a few limitations of this study that should be addressed in
the future with better solutions, especially in terms of data availability and processing
considerations. Sentinel-1 SAR has a revisit time of 6–12 days on average, where in some
cases we were not able to obtain the data exactly on the day when flooding hit the area.
Thus, alternatively in this study, we stacked a period of five days before the flood and five
days after the flood to obtain a differencing image that showed the flooded area. However,
this might not be a practical method for precise inundation mapping as the real-time flood
situation was not captured. The same issue applies for Sentinel-2 MSI data, and the flood
region estimated on Sentinel-2 images might be overestimated as clouds are intense during
flood events [77]. In addition, based on the analysis of the inundated area results, we found
that the flood in the built-up area might not be as complete as what we expected. This
might be due to finer information lost during the speckle filtering or elevation delineation.
This work may be improved in the future by considering more polarization [78] or
data fusion, as suggested by Tulbure et al. [60]. They demonstrated the improvement of
flood mapping via fusion of different datasets, but the study found that mapping of open
water surfaces in terms of flooding is still challenging as the spectral signatures may be
affected by sediment load, turbidity, dissolved matters, algae content depth and a bottom
reflectance signal [79]. Mason et al. [68] suggested that merging very high-resolution SAR
digital slope model (DSM) data could map urban flooding more accurately.
5. Conclusions
The 2021–2022 flood was the most deliberate flood in Malaysia’s history in terms of
property damage; however, a lack of flood inundation information resulted in difficulties
in rescue planning and resource management during and after the flood event. Hence, this
study developed a Rapid Extreme TRopicAl preCipitation and flood inundation mapping
framEwork (RETRACE) for helping local authorities with flood planning and mitigation
strategy development. Open-source satellite images from missions such as the GPM IMERG
Late Run product for precipitation and Sentinel-1 SAR for flood inundation mapping were
fully utilized in this framework. The flood victim statistics, which can be obtained from
NADMA and/or social media, are important inputs for any flood-related studies. In
addition, most of the processes were conducted using the cloud computing system, Google
Earth Engine (GEE), to save processing time and cost. This framework was applied to
study the characteristics of precipitation and floods for the Dec 2021–Jan 2022 unexpected
precipitation events in Peninsular Malaysia.
Overall, two peaks in the number of flood victims evacuated from their houses were
observed: (1) 21–24 December 2021—60,000 to 70,000 flood victims were placed in relief
centers, mostly in Pahang and Selangor; and (2) 2–6 January 2022—10,000 to 15,000 people
relocated to relief centers in Johor. Intense daily rainfall of up to 230 mm/day over
Peninsular Malaysia during the period triggered extreme flooding in eight states, primarily
in Pahang, Selangor, Kelantan and Johor. This analysis is important for future hazard
management so that an early warning can be released when the forecasted rainfall exceeds
the danger volume, as well as establishing preparations for flood relief operations during
monsoon seasons.
Sentinel-1 SAR images were able to produce flood inundation maps for the 2021–2022
flood. The result was validated with the flood location extracted from Sentinel-2 MSI
images and observed floods collected from site visits. The total flooded area in Peninsular
Malaysia during the flood was 77.43 km2 , and the spatial distribution of the inundated
area shows that the flood was saturated along the major rivers. The result shows that the
presented framework could produce flood inundated maps at 62~70% accuracy with the
threshold values suggested in this study. The maps are useful for local authorities such as
DID for use in flood management and to compare with the flooded areas simulated using
flood models.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Mou Leong Tan, Yi Lin Tew and Liew Juneng; method-
ology, Mou Leong Tan and Yi Lin Tew; validation, Yi Lin Tew, Mohamad Hafiz bin Hassan and
Sazali bin Osman; formal analysis, Mou Leong Tan, Yi Lin Tew and Kwok Pan Chun; resources, Mou
Leong Tan and Narimah Samat; writing—original draft preparation, Yi Lin Tew and Mou Leong Tan;
writing—review and editing, Mou Leong Tan, Liew Juneng, Kwok Pan Chun, Chun Kiat Chang and
Muhammad Humayun Kabir; supervision, Mou Leong Tan and Narimah Samat; funding acquisition,
Mou Leong Tan and Narimah Samat. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of
the manuscript.
Funding: This research was funded by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia under the Long-
Term Research Grant Scheme Project 2, grant number LRGS/1/2020/UKM-USM/01/6/2, which is
under the program of LRGS/1/2020/UKM/01/6.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Sentinel data presented in this study are available in Google Earth
Engine (https://earthengine.google.com/ (accessed on 11 January 2022)). The IMERG Late Run
product is available from the NASA Giovanni online tool (https://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/
(accessed on 11 January 2022)). Observed flood data are available on request from DID Malaysia. The
code of flood inundation mapping is available at https://code.earthengine.google.com/?scriptPath=
users%2Ftewyilin%2FPublic%3ARETRACE (accessed on 6 July 2022).
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to express gratitude to the developers of GEE, GPM, and
Sentinel for providing free satellite data and cloud computing platforms to the public. The authors
also thank DID and NADMA for providing the observed flood and flood victim information. K P
Chun is the awardee of the Accelerator Programme (AP) 2022-24 in the University of the West of
England (UWE), Bristol. The authors also acknowledge the editors and reviewers for their valuable
suggestions to improve this manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Rapid Extreme Tropical Precipitation and Flood Inundation Mapping

Article in International Journal of Geo-Information · July 2022

Yi Lin Tew Mou Leong Tan

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Liew Juneng Narimah Samat

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1 GeoInformatic Unit, Geography Section, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia,

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, 378. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi11070378 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi

However, identifying an optimal threshold in the binarization and features of elevation

2. Materials and Methods

2.2. Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission

2.3. Sentinel Satellites

State Flood Date Available Datasets

The inundation extent of extent

2.4.1. Pre-Processing of Sentinel Data

β ◦ (dB) = 20 log 10(DN) − K(dB) (4)

2.4.2. Precipitation and Flood Victim Analysis

2.4.3. Flood Inundation Mapping

2.4.4. Accuracy Assessment

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 24

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 11 of 24

3.3. Accuracy Assessment of Flood Inundation Maps

Threshold (Pixel) Pahang (%) Selangor (%)

3.4. Flood Inundation Mapping for the 2021–2022 Malaysia Flood

Flooded Area Flooded Area by

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 18 of 24

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 19 of 24

4.2. The 2021–2022 Malaysia Flood

4.3. Limitations of the Study

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