Articles | Volume 1, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/eo-1-43-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/eo-1-43-2026
Research article
 | 
06 Aug 2026
Research article |  | 06 Aug 2026

Reducing false alarms in urban flood detection: an enhanced NDWI (ENDWI) with Hybrid Max Fusion on Sentinel-2 Data

Abdulrhman M. Almoadi

Model code and software

aalmoadi/endwi: Z-Split Normalization v1.0.0 Abdulrhman Almoadi https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20602710

Download
Short summary

Urban floods are difficult to detect accurately in satellite imagery because non-water surfaces often resemble floodwater, causing false alarms. This study introduces an enhanced normalized difference water index (ENDWI), derived from the normalized difference water index (NDWI), combined with a second hybrid index to reduce these false alarms using freely available Sentinel-2 imagery. False alarms were reduced from 38 % to under 3 %, offering a more reliable, low-cost approach to urban flood mapping.

Share