River Flood Risk Assessment in Communities of the Peruvian Andes: A Semiquantitative Application for Disaster Prevention

Abstract

River floods are common natural phenomena that occur when the flow of water exceeds the capacity of a river due to excessive rainfall. In the Peruvian territory, the heavy rains of 2010 had consequences of great magnitude, leaving more than 5000 people affected and 25 dead in the Peruvian Andes. This research aimed to analyze and determine the level of risk due to river floods in communities of the Peruvian Andes in terms of hazard and vulnerability, using a semi-quantitative methodology and applying a multi-criteria analysis with vector information and raster from the national spatial data infrastructure that acted as triggering and conditioning factors, as well as conducting fieldwork with the application of targeted surveys. Then, the geoprocessing of thematic maps through GIS software was carried out. The research findings indicate that virtually the entire study area, approximately 99.26%, is at a high level of hazard, with only a small 0.74% classified as very high hazard. In other words, the entire studied territory is susceptible to floods. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that over 75% of the households in this area face vulnerability to floods, resulting in 99.15% of them being categorized at a high-risk level. It is concluded that river flooding represents a potential risk in large areas of the high Andean community due to the existence of various social, economic and environmental factors that make this phenomenon catastrophic.