Waterlogging and flood hazards vulnerability and risk assessment in Indo Gangetic plain

Abstract

The recurrent flooding during monsoon and subsequent waterlogging in the northern Bihar plains and the magnitude of losses due to these hazards indicate the continuing vulnerability of the region to flood and waterlogging. Management of floods and waterlogging hazards in highly flood-prone regions of India, including Bihar state has been largely response oriented with little or no attention to mitigation and preparedness. This paper presents a method for spatial, Geographic Information Systems-based assessment of flood and waterlogging vulnerability and risk in northern Bihar plains. Multitemporal satellite data was used to evaluate the area statistics and dynamics of waterlogging over the period from 1975 to 2008. The flood proneness is evaluated at district level with reference to flood inundation during a period from 1998 to 2008. Census data were used to examine the socio-economic characteristics of the region through computation of population density, cultivators, agricultural labourers, sex ratio, children in age group 0-6 years and literates. The geohazard map derived by combining area prone to waterlogging and flood inundation was multiplied with socio-economic vulnerability map to derive the flood-waterlogging risk map of the region. The result shows that flood and water-logging pose highest risk to the central districts in the northern Bihar plains with 50.95% of the total area under high and very high risk.

Identification of Vulnerable Areas to Floods in Kelantan River Sub-Basins by Using Flood Vulnerability Index

“…When assessing an area for flood risk, many variables need to be taken into account [10] - [12]. In this study, we used population, soil to erosion potential, the utility of soil for agriculture, transportation network, shopping market locations, irrigation infrastructure and total infrastructure for developing flood vulnerability index in the Kelantan River basin.…”

Hazards, Risk, and Vulnerability

“…A number of studies have used biophysical and socioeconomic variables to evaluate fl ood hazards and vulnerability in diverse environments (Kienberger 2012 ;Wang et al 2011 ;Kazmierczak and Cavan 2011 ;Sebastian et al 2011 ;Scheuer et al 2011 ;Chen et al 2011 ;Schumann and Baldassarre 2010 ;Bizimana and Schilling 2010 ;Pandey et al 2010 ;Fekete et al 2010 ;Finch et al 2010 ;Intarawichian and Dasananda 2010 ;Pavri 2010 ;Maantay et al 2010 ;Bizimana and Schilling 2010 ;Meyer et al 2009 ;Kubal et al 2009 ;Zheng et al 2009 ;Zahran et al 2008 ;Sinha et al 2008 ;Demirkesen et al 2007 ;Azar and Rain 2007 ;Sanyal and Lu 2006 ;Yalcin and Akyurek 2004 ;Montz and Tobin 2003 ;Jain and Sinha 2003 ;Wu et al 2002 ;Cutter et al 2000 ;Clark et al 1998 ) . As noted by Cutter et al ( 2009 ) and Rashed and Weeks ( 2003b ) , the combined use of social and physical variables could allow a rigorous assessment of vulnerability to natural hazards, as they are intrinsically linked.…”

“…However, the results from this method are useful for comparing the spatial variability of vulnerability across different spatial units. Pandey et al ( 2010 ) used fl ood and waterlogging data with demographic and socioeconomic variables to estimate fl ood and waterlogging hazards and the vulnerability index at the district level in India. Using a rating scale (1-4), they generated waterlogging and fl ood hazard maps.…”

Impact of Flooding on Land Use/ Land Cover Transformation in Wular Lake and Its Environs, Kashmir Valley, India Using Geoinformatics

“…Flood hazard mapping vulnerability assessment plays an important component for land use planning in areas affected by flood. The high risk areas correspond to high hazard and vulnerability which are extremely prone to flood and also vulnerable to these hazards from point of socio-economic (Pandey et al, 2010). Land use transformation is very useful using satellite data in GIS environment in order to monitor land consumption rate (Kumar et al, 2011).…”