Water extent around the Doncaster, UK, area at the start of November 2019 derived using Pixalytics algorithm. with Sentinel-1 data.
Last week the Midlands and the North of the UK was subject to a weather system with heavy and persistent rain. In fact, a weather station in Sheffield recorded its greatest ever metrological autumn rainfall of over 425 mm, breaking a record from 2000, and there is still ten days of the season left!
One of the areas that have suffered badly are the villages of and Stainforth and Fishlake, located north-west of the town of Doncaster, the latter village almost 2,000 people evacuated from due to the flooding.
The thumbnail image at the top of the blog shows the water extent around this area for four dates at the start of November. This map is produced using Pixalytics water extent algorithm based on Sentinel-1 data. The map shows the area where water resides, which includes normal rivers and marshlands, together with areas of flooding and supersaturated ground. A larger version of the image can be seen here.
The town of Doncaster can be seen centrally at the bottom of the image and if you follow the red areas north-west, showing where there was water on the 13th November, this goes up to the villages of Stainforth and Fishlake. Above that, there is another area of red, above the village of Sykehouse.
The map shows four separate dates with each additional layer being stacked on top. So the light blue areas show the water extent on the 1st and 2nd November which is essentially mainly the normal rivers and lakes in the area, the darker blue is the water extent on the 8th November, the purple is the water extent on the 11th November and finally the most extensive red area is the water extent on the 13th November. Clearly, as this is stacked image, the red areas overlie any potential flooding in the same areas on the earlier dates.
The area around the town of Doncaster UK, acquired from Sentinel-2 on the 26/02/19. Data courtesy of ESA/Copernicus.
Around ten miles to the right of Doncaster is the village of Lindholme and is also home to Lindholme Prison, behind the prison is a series of fields which can clearly be seen as an area of water or supersaturated ground. According to Google maps in the centre of this area is also Tibetan Buddhist Centre, although it appears to have survived the water according to our map. A Sentinel-2 image of the area can be seen to the right, this was acquired on the 26th February 2019.
We know flooding is a horrible experience for anyone who is unfortunate enough to be involved, and we hope that everyone who has been displaced can soon get back into their home and our best wishes for go out to them as they start the process of cleaning up and drying out.
