WORLD FROM SPACE: Floods In Cambodia

Part of the Tonle Sap on 18 October 2011

Part of the Tonle Sap on 26 October 2006

Sat Oct 22, 2011
By Paul Vaughan
Irish Weather Online

A series of tropical storms and heavy monsoon rains combined to make 2011 the worst flood season on the lower Mekong River since 2000. Floods swept across Cambodia, impacting 17 of the country’s 24 provinces. To date, at least 207 people have died in the floods and 34,000 families have been evacuated, said the Cambodian Red Cross.

These images compare seasonal flooding along the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap on October 18, 2011, and October 26, 2006. Taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua and Terra satellites, the images include both infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. Water is black or dark blue, while the surrounding plant-covered land is green. Clouds are pale blue and white. Both the Tonle Sap and the Sen River flood Kompong Thom, one of the most severely impacted provinces in Cambodia. The Mekong River is also swollen in 2011 compared to 2006.

Fires in Cambodia seen from NASA MODIS Satellite

Click on the photo to zoom in

[KI-Media note: The Tonle Sap is seen in dark green on the center left]

When the MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Southeast Asia on January 20, 2008, the sensor captured this image of the onset of the agricultural burning season in Cambodia. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are marked in red. Like other countries in Southeast Asia, Cambodia’s climate is dominated by the monsoon, with rainy, humid weather from June through November, and dry weather from November to May.

During the dry season, fires are widespread across the agricultural land in the heart of the country as farmers clear brush and the remains of the season’s harvest. Though it is not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources.