Flood inundation detection using multi-temporal dual-polarization Sentinel-1 SAR imagery and Convolutional Neural Networks: A case study in Hue City, Vietnam

  • Affiliations:

    Institute of Construction Technology, Le Quy Don Technical University, Hanoi, Vietnam

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  • Received: 22nd-Jan-2026
  • Revised: 27th-June-2026
  • Accepted: 17th-July-2026
  • Online: 1st-Oct-2026
Pages: 59 - 71
Views: 27
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Abstract:

Flooding is one of the most destructive natural hazards, causing substantial impacts on socio-economic systems and the environment. Rapid and accurate delineation of flood extent plays a crucial role in disaster monitoring and decision-making processes. This study presents a deep learning framework based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for flood inundation mapping in Hue City, Vietnam, using multi-temporal dual-polarization Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. The input dataset was constructed from pre-flood and post-flood Sentinel-1 acquisitions, including the VV and VH polarization bands. In addition, two change-detection bands (ΔVV and ΔVH) were generated to capture temporal variations in surface backscatter intensity between the two observation periods. These six bands were integrated and used as input features for the CNN model. The proposed CNN architecture was designed to exploit both spatial contextual information and radar backscatter characteristics through 5×5 pixel image patches, enabling effective discrimination between flooded and non-flooded areas. A total of 16,000 labeled samples representing flooded and non-flooded areas were used for model training and evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate that the CNN achieves a classification accuracy of 95.13% on the test dataset with a loss value of 0.1918. Independent validation using 1000 random reference points yielded an overall accuracy of 96,4% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.928. The results confirm the effectiveness and applicability of integrating multi-temporal Sentinel-1 SAR data with a CNN-based deep learning framework for flood inundation mapping. The proposed approach improves flood boundary delineation and provides an effective tool for rapid flood mapping, disaster response, and flood risk management.

How to Cite
Le, H.Minh, Le, H.Hong Vu and Nguyen, H.Vinh Tran 2026. Flood inundation detection using multi-temporal dual-polarization Sentinel-1 SAR imagery and Convolutional Neural Networks: A case study in Hue City, Vietnam (in Vietnamese). Journal of Mining and Earth Sciences. 67, 5 (Oct, 2026), 59-71. DOI:https://doi.org/10.46326/JMES.2026.67(5).05.
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