Flood zoning and developing strategies to increase resilience against floods with a crisis management approach (original) (raw)
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INTRODUCTION: According to the flood records in Mazandaran province, this region is regarded as one of the flood-prone regions of the country, and due to the floods, it has suffered many casualties and financial losses. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the settlements at risk of flooding as one of the main goals of this research. METHODS: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted based on extensive and exploratory research approaches. The required data were collected from monthly discharge and the maximum instantaneous discharge in the stations of Mazandaran province along with the population statistics of the provincial cities, as well as the statistics of the Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization concerning the floods. Accordingly, the statistics of hydrometric stations from 1971 to 2021 of Iran's water resources management main company, the population statistics of the province based on the census of 2015, and the statistics of floods that occurred from the beginning to 2021 have been used in this study. Flood return periods were obtained in the study stations in different statistical distributions using Hyfa software. Finally, Arc GIS software (version 10.3) was used to zone floods in Mazandaran province. FINDINGS: Based on the results, about 1013 square kilometers of the province's surface accounting for 4.25% of its total area is located in the boundaries of large floods that have a return period of 50 to 100 years. Moreover, due to the high altitude, rainy-snowy events, and the significant amount of precipitation in Sarab (Dali Chai and Lar basins) and Payab, Haraz basin has a significant runoff rate discharge so that about 500 to 600 liters of water flow from this basin annually per square meter. CONCLUSION: According to the obtained results, strategies have been proposed to increase resilience against flood risk using different methods.
Scientific Reports
This study aims to analyze flood resilience (FR) in Karaj City, Iran, using a new fuzzy method which combines several qualitative and quantitative indices. The qualitative part was estimated by a questionnaire consisting of 42 questions distributed into five indices (social-cultural, economic, infrastructural-physical, organizational-institutional, and hydraulic). A fuzzy method was used for analyzing the results. To quantify the hydraulic index, a 25-year flood was simulated in the Storm Water Management Model and the flooding volume at every grid was estimated. The idea was that the flooding amount could be representative of structural FR of drainage network that cannot be evaluated through a questionnaire well. To calculate the FR of different districts, the obtained FR indices were fuzzified then aggregated. Considering that clustering can assist managers and decision makers for more effective flood risk management, a fuzzy equivalence matrix concept was used for clustering FR i...
2021
In Iran, location is usually done by temporary relief organizations without considering the necessary standards or conditions. The inappropriate and unscientific location may have led to another catastrophe, even far greater than the initial tragedy. In this study, the proposed locations of crisis management in the region and the optimal points proposed by the Geographic Information System (GIS), taking into account the opinions of experts and without the opinion of experts, were evaluated according to 18 criteria. First, the optimal areas have been evaluated according to standard criteria extracted by GIS and the intended locations of the region for accommodation in times of crisis. Then, the position of each place is calculated concerning each criterion. The resulting matrix of optimal options was qualitatively entered into the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Evaluation (PROMETHEE) for analysis. The triangular fuzzy aggregation method for weighting and standard classifi...
Application of Geographic Information System (GIS), for Crisis Management
International Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Research and Studies, 2024
Natural disasters have always existed as a natural phenomenon throughout the life of the earth. The occurrence of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, storms, etc. in most cases have destructive effects on human settlements and heavy casualties on their residents. It has destroyed the buildings and infrastructures of such areas and imposed unfortunate economic and social consequences on cities and countries. Despite many scientific advances, mankind is still not able to prevent and resist these natural events. Natural disaster management and sustainable development are considered an integrated issue today. Due to limited resources, real development will not be possible without integration with disaster reduction programs. Earthquakes as a natural phenomenon do not have adverse results by themselves. What makes this phenomenon a disaster is the lack of prevention and lack of preparation to deal with its consequences. Therefore, one of the most necessary measures is to apply "principles of crisis management". Crisis management measures can be summarized in three parts: 1. Prevention, 2. Response, and 3. Reconstruction. Therefore, the title is the most important discussion in the strategy of reducing the effects of earthquakes. In this research, we seek to find the best location for crisis management support bases in Malair City, which first identified the effective factors and criteria in the location of relief centers during a crisis. Then, the AHP model was used to determine the importance and value of each criterion and effective elements in the decision, and a questionnaire was designed and distributed among experts and specialists. In the next step, the weight of each decision criteria and element was determined using the hierarchical analysis process method and Expert Choice software. Then, using the field method, figures of the studied area were updated and prepared. In the next step, all information layers were converted to raster in the geographic information system (GIS). Finally, using the Index overlay method, the layers were combined. Three locations were suggested as the best locations for crisis management support bases in Malayer City. Among them, two options, one in the eastern part of the city on Molvi Street, and the other in the southern part of the city on Motahari Street, have been proposed as the best options. In terms of accessibility, they are in a good position. An option with a lower score is located in the southeastern part of the city on Sheikh Kilini Street.
Emergency Response Resilience to Floods Operationalised with Applied Geoinformatics
Doctoral Dissertation, 2021
In cities, timely emergency response (ER) presupposes timely citywide accessibility enabled by the road transport system’s uninterrupted functioning. However, in this era of increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and hydrometeorological hazards, delays or blockages challenge timely accessibility. Therefore, the thesis aims to contribute to saving lives by reducing losses in critical infrastructure (CI) functioning for adaptive emergency response (ER) provision towards the population’s and the emergency responders’ safety. For this purpose, the urban ER system is presented as a complex adaptive system of systems (SoS) that, under the stressor of floods, can adapt and transform so to retain its critical functionality considering safety and security aspects. For a deepened understanding of flood risks, their cascading impacts and interrelation with the resilience of a complex adaptive SoS, the thesis introduces an operational resilience framework that adopts an interdependent resiliencies concept and combines a top-down and a bottom-up spatial scaling approach. The SoS resilience concept, as applied to an urban ER system, introduces an operational framework for the urban emergency response resilience (ERR) that follows the 4R model (4Resilience characteristics: robustness, resourcefulness, redundancy, rapidity of response) in an interdependent form. The usefulness and intent of adopting the urban ERR concept from European stakeholders and researchers and emergency response and civil protection officials are analysed with semi-structured interviews. The CAS theory applied to the urban ER system enables its division to the agent, system and network level and identifies the hierarchy between its constituent systems. The road transport system is higher in the hierarchy due to its pivotal role in the urban ER system’s behaviour and, therefore, is the ‘zero-point’ for further flood risk assessments. The graph theory and the complex network theory assist with graphical representations and compartmentalisation of the urban ER system to its systems, networks, and components and digitisation using geographic information systems (GIS) for ERR assessments. The ERR to regular and extreme scenarios of riverine floods and flash floods is assessed with a multi-criteria risk-based time-dependent accessibility indicator (RITAI) for Cologne’s fire brigade system in Germany. The RITAI utilises applied geoinformatics with geographic information systems (GIS) to identify first-, second and third-order flood risks in various scales and levels of this urban ER system, with a top-down and an eight-step GIS-based spatial upscaling approach. Safety and security aspects are considered with the RITAI’s benchmarking according to the fire trucks’ safe driving capacity through flooded waters, the flood depths and the road types. After defining analyses’ units on a road network level, a developed semi-automated GIS-Toolkit integrates flood depth and flood-impacted road type-dependent speeds in the road network database for each of the selected flood scenarios. The resulting flood-risk informative road networks are utilised for large-scale road network resilience capacities, assessed with changes in transport characteristics. Later and after the definition of city units, citywide connectivity and accessibility assessments are conducted with network analyses. For a pattern identification of the fire brigade system’s ERR to floods, the RITAI is assessed and visualised in each city unit, after classification according to Cologne's fire brigades' official ER time thresholds - eight minutes. Geovisualisation and fuzzification techniques are utilised for simplification and aggregation of the information. Flood-impact statistical curves are also generated for aggregation of information and preparedness of response to escalating or compound flood events. The data utilised were retrieved from open sources and fire brigade and flood management local officials in raster, vector, Excel files and official reports and were visualised in maps. The data undertook cleaning and transformation for interoperability purposes and further handling. The RITAI’s general application and handling of data can be time-consuming, with the processing costs depending highly on the selected units of analyses and the computer’s memory capacity. The results, i.e., large-scale road network exposure, redundancy and resourcefulness, citywide accessibility route plans and spatial hexagonal urban ER system connectivity and ERR matrixes, are visualised in maps. They indicate that the citywide ER efficiency in cities depends highly on large-scale geolocated flood extent and flood depth information and the road type and the rescue vehicles’ capacity for safe drivability through flooded waters. It is identified that the regular and extreme flash floods scenarios follow a similar geographical locality of occurrence. However, the extreme flash flood scenario causes a higher ERR decrease, which indicates its dependence on the road type exposed to floods and the geolocation of flood intensities. Moreover, in cities, the local enhancement of the road network’s resilience (absorption, adaptation and transformation) capacities, considering the emergency responders’ safety, enhances the fire brigade system’s ERR to floods. The local extension of CI functioning is achieved by enhancing resourcefulness (transformation capacity) with an extension of the road transport system’s endogenous redundancy (adaptation capacity). This extension further extends its exogenous redundancy of alternative accessibility route paths, enhancing the fire brigade system’s response capacity. Additionally, statistical analyses of the road transport system’s resilience capacities in case of escalating floods revealed that its resilience capacity for ER provision is highly decreased. Finally, ERR assessments indicate that the ER provision will potentially be highly incapacitated in case of an extreme riverine flood scenario and highly delayed with an extreme flash flood scenario. It is also identified that east Cologne needs further attention in the preparedness phase for timely ER under flooded conditions. Nevertheless, the results depend on the correctness of data used, their resolution and unit of analyses, which can cause biases in the calculation processes. Biases in interpreting the results are reduced by simplifying the system’s connectivity and ERR information in hexagonal spatial matrixes. With the concept of ERR and its operationalisation approach, current silo-thinking disaster risk management (DRM) approaches are enriched with CAS, resilience, security and spatial thinking, enabling holistic and collaborative risk mitigation strategies. For this purpose, an identified lacking connection between the application fields of emergency rescue systems, civil protection and critical infrastructure protection (CIP) is now established with the suggested urban ER system. Additionally, the enhancement of the ERR and the communities’ resilience through timely ER provision is achieved with enhanced geospatial preparedness for adaptive management. Applied geoinformatics and GIS provide the means for identifying, assessing, visualising and timely exchanging a range of systemic and cascading first-, second-and third-order flood impacts for adaptive management. Adaptation is attained with approaches that consider safety and security aspects and enable accurate assessments of, for example, operational costs associated with the transfer of heavy rescue equipment, emergency humanitarian logistics, community and CI resilience. The concept’s flexible and interdisciplinary character is valuable for further applications to various SoS and scenario- and place-based multi-criteria risk analyses and interdependency analyses valuable for training purposes in different countries, urban districts, and counties where floods are not typical. The thesis also discusses in detail further methodological improvements, enrichments and potential use cases.
Flood management and risk assessment in flood-prone areas: Measures and solutions
Irrigation and Drainage, 2011
Flood hazard and disaster in Iran is one of the most frequent and damaging types of natural disaster. The Gorganroud watershed in the Golestan province recently has incurred severe damages resulted from flood events. Thus, this work was aimed to assess and map the flood susceptibility areas in the Gorganroud watershed to propose a comprehensive layout for flood monitoring and alarming stations. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) integrated with Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) approach within the GIS environment was employed to extract flood hazard zones. Results revealed that the cities Maraveh Tape,
Methodology for the development of Flood Resilience Index
The number of people affected by flooding increases, the disruption of physical environment and urban communities by flood causes significant damages. It is understood that floods can not be stopped, but the reduction of damages and vulnerability of risk prone communities can be done. The need for a shift to a new approach within flood risk management resulted with integrated flood risk management. The shift from traditional flood risk management put a vulnerability of community in the focus. The way forward is leading to resilience, having in mind all challenges that are obstructing implementation of this new approach. The urban flood resilience methodology brings a new light on existing flood related problems that are urban communities face nowadays. This paper takes a first step in bringing resilience in integrated flood risk management through a framework that is employing five dimensions in order to evaluate the level of disturbance and ability to preserve and functioning during and after the flooding processes on one side and relief, resist, response, recovery and reflect (5R) on the other side. The methodology presented in this paper is done within CORFU project.
Remote Sensing, 2021
Urban flooding has been an alarming issue in the past around the globe, particularly in South Asia. Pakistan is no exception from this situation where urban floods with associated damages are frequently occurring phenomena. In Pakistan, rapid urbanization is the key factor for urban flooding, which is not taken into account. This study aims to identify flood sensitivity and coping capacity while assessing urban flood resilience and move a step toward the initialization of resilience, specifically for Peshawar city and generally for other cities of Pakistan. To achieve this aim, an attempt has been made to propose an integrated approach named the “urban flood resilience model (UFResi-M),” which is based on geographical information system(GIS), remote sensing (RS), and the theory of analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The UFResi-M incorporates four main factors—urban flood hazard, exposure, susceptibility, and coping capacity into two parts, i.e., sensitivity and coping capacity. The ...
Methodology for Flood Resilience Index Development
… of the 34th World Congress of the …, 2011
Modern cities have developed during the last decades a high vulnerability regarding flood processes due to the fast growth of technical equipments and sophistication of infrastructures like public mass transportation systems, energy supply networks, etc. The present paper, based on the CORFU FP7 project focused on Asian and European urban environments and urban flooding resilience, present a global methodology used to assess, at various spatial scales, a flood resilience index. The approach is characterized by several sequential steps which include hydrological events analysis, flood modelling, and vulnerability assessment. The proposed approach could be implemented according to different special resolutions and various levels of accuracy for the different data categories used. The methodology covers the differences in urban flooding problems in Asia and in Europe range from levels of economic development, infrastructure age, social systems and decision making processes, to prevailing drainage methods, seasonality of rainfall patterns and climate change trends.
Journal of Water and Wastewater, 2022
Urban floods have been exacerbated by climate change, urbanization, and limited drainage of urban infrastructure. Over the past decades, they had many negative effects, including the vulnerability of key centers. The vulnerability of key urban centers through man-made hazards and natural disasters causes their inefficiency, intensifies public dissatisfaction and lack of service in accidents. In order to make key centers resilient, it is necessary to identify important centers and examine their vulnerability to various hazards and threats. Criteria and sub-criteria for grading and evaluation of assets were weighted by AHP technique in Expert Choice software and then the key centers of the city were identified. Intra-Urban and extra-Urban hydrology and modeling of rivers in Hamadan in different return periods were studied by using HEC-RAS software. Next, the results were transferred to GIS and flood risk zoning of Hamadan was determined. After entering the average sample comments in Expert Choice software, the weight of each index was determined separately, which shows that the quantitative level of utilization index has the highest weight and the economic value of the asset has the lowest weight. Finally, with the adaptation of key centers and flood risk zones in GIS, vulnerable centers were identified.