Citation

Mukherjee F, Singh D. GeoJournal 2020; 85(3): 647-663.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10708-019-09984-2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Flooding is one of the most devastating natural disasters in the world that causes massive damages to natural and man-made features every year. As urbanization continues at an unprecedented rate, the damage caused by such natural disasters keeps increasing. Moreover, as human population continues to explode, settlements keep expanding and human activities continue to grow in low-lying areas vulnerable to flooding activities. Different strategies have been adopted to prevent flood hazards. One such strategy is flood susceptibility mapping to identify vulnerable areas prone to flooding. Such mapping processes are important for early warning system, emergency services, prevention and mitigation of future floods and implementation of flood management strategies. Harris County is a rapidly growing metropolitan area, situated on a low-lying coastal plain with little topographic relief and high susceptibility to flooding. This study incorporates a GIS based weighted multi-criteria analysis to determine flood prone areas in Harris County, Texas by integrating nine flood conditioning factors such as slope, elevation, soil type, rainfall intensity, flow accumulation, LULC, NDVI and distance from river and distance from road. The objectives of this study is threefold. Firstly, to determine the impact weight of the selected nine flood conditioning factors. Secondly, to combine the conditioning factors using weighted overlay method in ArcGIS to map the areas in Harris County that are prone to flooding. And finally, to overlay the 2017 FEMA flood hazard map on the weighted overlay flood hazard map.

Language: en