# Rapid post-disaster infrastructure damage characterisation enabled by remote sensing and deep learning technologies -- a tiered approach

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.17759 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17759/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 94 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Jan 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05499/) (2023)
- [Grounded Language-Image Pre-training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03857/) (2021)
- [RSPrompter: Learning to Prompt for Remote Sensing Instance Segmentation based on Visual Foundation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16269/) (2023)
- [Strategies and Principles of Distributed Machine Learning on Big Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.09295/) (2015)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [AI and Remote Sensing for Resilient and Sustainable Built Environments: A Review of Current Methods, Open Data and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01547/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Critical infrastructure, such as transport networks and bridges, are systematically targeted during wars and suffer damage during extensive natural disasters because it is vital for enabling connectivity and transportation of people and goods, and hence, underpins national and international economic growth. Mass destruction of transport assets, in conjunction with minimal or no accessibility in the wake of natural and anthropogenic disasters, prevents us from delivering rapid recovery and adaptation. As a result, systemic operability is drastically reduced, leading to low levels of resilience. Thus, there is a need for rapid assessment of its condition to allow for informed decision-making for restoration prioritisation. A solution to this challenge is to use technology that enables stand-off observations. Nevertheless, no methods exist for automated characterisation of damage at multiple scales, i.e. regional (e.g., network), asset (e.g., bridges), and structural (e.g., road pavement) scales. We propose a methodology based on an integrated, multi-scale tiered approach to fill this capability gap. In doing so, we demonstrate how automated damage characterisation can be enabled by fit-for-purpose digital technologies. Next, the methodology is applied and validated to a case study in Ukraine that includes 17 bridges, damaged by human targeted interventions. From regional to component scale, we deploy technology to integrate assessments using Sentinel-1 SAR images, crowdsourced information, and high-resolution images for deep learning to facilitate automatic damage detection and characterisation. For the first time, the interferometric coherence difference and semantic segmentation of images were deployed in a tiered multi-scale approach to improve the reliability of damage characterisations at different scales.