Since late spring of 1991

weather had become abnormal in Huaihe riverbasin

During the period from May to July

it universally fell heavy rain and tor-rential rain in this region. Hit by rainstorm continually

some local areas sufferedan exceptionallv serious flood disaster in the century.This paper emphasizes in des-cribing the method of monitoring this flood disaster using cloud-free imagery invisible and near infrared channels obtained by scanning radiometer on board FY-1Bpolar meteorological satellite. Firstly

the capability of monitoring flood with FY-1B/VHRSR（Very HighResolution Scanning Radiometer）was studied

especially

the spectral responses inchannels of VHRSR of waterbodies in different conditions

The result shows thatCH2 can be used to identify the boundary between water and land

CH1 correspondsto water turbidity

and CH3 and CH4 can be used in water depth analysis.In accordance with the characteristics of VHRSR channels

several schemes forinformation enhancement were designed to estimate water depth and water turbidity

and also to identify waterbodies more effectively.Flood area was accurately calcu-lated on an image processirig system by statistics and classification method interac-tively. The result shows that FY-1B data has potential in monitoring large area flooddisaster.