How long did crops survive from floods caused by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique detected with multi-satellite data

Floods are causing massive losses of crops and agricultural infrastructures in many regions across the globe. During the 2018/2019 agricultural year, heavy rains from Cyclone Idai caused flooding in Central Mozambique and had the greatest impact on Sofala Province. The main objectives of this study are to map the flooding durations, evaluate how long crops survived the floods, and analyse the dynamics of the affected crops and their recovery following various flooding durations using multi-source satellite data. Our results indicate that Otsu method-based flooding mapping provides reliable flood extents and durations with an overall accuracy higher than 90%, which facilitates the assessment of how long crops can survive floods and their recovery progress. Croplands in both Buzi and Tica administrative units were the most severely impacted among all the regions in Sofala Province, with the largest flooded cropland extent at 23,101.1 ha in Buzi on 20 March 2019 and the most prolonged flooding duration of more than 42 days in Tica and Mafambisse. Major summer crops, including maize and rice, could survive when the fields were inundated for up to 12 days, while all crops died when the flooding duration was longer than 24 days. The recovery of surviving crops to pre-flooding status took a much longer time, from approximately 20 days to as long as one month after flooding. The findings presented herein can assist decision making in developing countries or remote regions for flood monitoring, mitigation and damage assessment. [Display omitted] •Image-dependent threshold method precisely extracts flood extent and duration.•Multi-satellite analysis is feasible to quantify the dynamic flood impacts on crops.•Crops could survive even inundate for 12 days, but recovery was slow.•All crops die with flooding durations longer than 24 days.•The Buzi and Tica regions were severely damaged by the 2019 floods in Mozambique.