COmparison of MNDWI and DFI for water mapping in flooding season

Water delineation during flooding is an important research issue in the context of different background regions for protecting both people and agriculture. This paper compares two very important water indices for practical water mapping especially in the context of river flood management. Desert Flood Index (DFI) is a new index which has been introduced as an modification to famous MNDWI for flooding in the river basin having both desert and vegetation areas. In this study disastrous Indus River flooding of 2010 in Pakistan is considered as a case study by using MODIS and Landsat TM data. Images for both Pre-flooding and flooding are analyzed for the most significant part of river flooding. Results proved that DFI appeared to be more efficient than MNDWI in delineating water body from its background features by enhancing contrast.