article · Results in Earth Sciences
Assessing flood risk is vital for mapping hazardous zones and designing mitigation strategies. Research conducted in the Dades Wadi watershed evaluated a Flood Risk Index by combining Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing, and the Analytical Hierarchy Process. The evaluation examined seven main flood-causing criteria: flow accumulation, distance from the river network, drainage network density, land use, slope, rainfall, and permeability. Among these, flow accumulation emerged as the most critical factor, whereas soil permeability was the least influential. The resulting hazard mapping revealed that approximately 40.36 per cent of the watershed, representing roughly 1,320 square kilometres near rivers, faces very high flood risk. Conversely, over 56 per cent of the territory exhibits low to very low risk. The index model demonstrated high predictive reliability, achieving an Area Under the Curve validation score of 85 per cent.
Floods can cause widespread damage to infrastructure, agriculture, and communities located in vulnerable river valleys. Accurately pinpointing high-risk zones enables regional authorities and disaster management agencies to prioritise flood defences, guide safer land development, and establish targeted emergency plans. Understanding which environmental factors contribute most heavily to flood hazards ensures that protective investments are directed where they are needed most.
This applied spatial methodology offers flood hazard mapping tools that can assist regional planning authorities, infrastructure developers, and disaster risk agencies. Because the framework has been applied and validated against real watershed data with an 85 per cent accuracy score, it is an applied decision-support approach that could be adapted into commercial environmental risk assessment services and spatial planning consultancy workflows.
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Flood risk assessment is crucial for delineating flood hazard zones and formulating effective mitigation strategies. Employing a multi-criteria decision support system, this study focused on assessing a Flood Risk Index (FHI) at the Dades Wadi watershed scale. Seven main flood-causing criteria were broadly selected, namely flow accumulation, distance from hydrographic network, drainage network density, land use, slope, rainfall, and permeability. The relative importance of each criterion prioritized as per their contribution toward flood risk, which were employed a blend of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS)/Remote Sensing (RS) techniques. The significance of each criterion was determined based on their contribution to flood hazard, and their relative importance was established through an AHP pair-wise comparison matrix. The efficacy of the AHP model was performed with a consistency ratio of 0.08, which indicated that each flood criterion weight is confirmed. Among the flood-causing criteria, the hydrologic flow accumulation factor was identified as the most influential (weight: 3.11), while permeability exhibited the least prominence (weight: 0.58). Approximately 40.36% of the total area, equivalent to around 1319, 89 km2, was concentrated within very high flood-risk zones situated near rivers. In contrast, an area of approximately 399,943 km2 (56.33%) exhibited a low to very low flood risk zone. The validation of the FHI map encompassed the application of the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC) technique, revealing an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 85%.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.rines.2024.100019
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