Flood-protection infrastructure

DykeMap

Maps every dyke, levee and flood wall, and shows where to inspect first, before the next flood does.

Satellite view of a coastline with a dyke separating the sea from farmland

The challenge

Dykes, levees and flood walls protect assets worth hundreds of billions of euros. Yet many of them grew over centuries and appear in no map at all. The rest is managed on paper: fragmented records, manual inspections and no big picture of the whole network. Rising seas and more extreme weather raise the risk every year.

Our approach

DykeMap does two things. First, it detects every dyke and flood-defence structure in a region and brings them into one single overview. Second, it monitors every section of that network from space, so that inspections on the ground go where they are needed. We don’t replace inspections. We tell you where to inspect.

Part one

Dyke detection

Every structure, in one map.

Many dykes were never registered. DykeMap finds them in the elevation data, whether they are in a register or not.

Aerial image of a bay shore with a detected barrier line drawn in blue between the water and a town — Detected barrier line on the bay shore, Pärnu, Estonia

Measure the ground

National LiDAR and Copernicus elevation models give the ground height to a few centimetres, for every metre of coast and river.

Find the walls

The algorithm looks for raised linear structures that stand above both flanks, and measures height and length along each of them.

Classify and cross-check

Each structure is classified, dyke or levee, road or rail embankment, dune belt, and compared against national registers and public map databases.

One overview

The result is one map layer in open GIS format: every structure with its type, height, length and confidence score.

Part two

Dyke monitoring

Every section, watched from space.

Macro monitoring as the preparation for inspections on the ground. Radar and optical satellites, fused with live gauge data, in all weather.

Ground movement

Millimetre-scale movement per section from Sentinel-1 radar, with a new pass every six days or so, through clouds and at night.

Saturation and vegetation

Sentinel-2 shows changes in moisture and plant cover every two to three days. A soaked or bare patch shows where a dyke weakens.

Water level against crest height

Hourly readings from national gauge networks, compared with the measured crest of each section: how much margin is left.

Where to inspect first

All signals come together in one status per section. The critical ones stand out, and that is where the inspection team goes.

Knowing where to look first.

One complete map of every structure, and a status for every section of it. With DykeMap, inspections go to the sections that need them, and the money goes where the risk is.