Flood Hazard Index Application in Arid Catchments: Case of the Taguenit Wadi Watershed, Lakhssas, Morocco

Abstract

During the last decade, climate change has generated extreme rainfall events triggering flash floods in short periods worldwide. The delimitation of flood zones by detailed mapping generally makes it possible to avoid human and economic losses, especially in regions at high risk of flooding. The Taguenit basin, located in southern Morocco, is a particular case. The mapping of the flood zones of this basin by the method of the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) in a GIS geographic information systems environment was based on the multi-criteria analysis, taking into consideration the seven parameters influencing these extreme phenomena, namely rainfall, slope, flow accumulation, drainage network density, distance from rivers, permeability, and land use. Average annual rainfall data for 37 years (1980 to 2016) was used in this study for floodplain mapping. A weight was calculated for each parameter using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The combination of the maps of the different parameters made it possible to draw up a final map classified into five risk intervals: very high, high, moderate, lower and very lower presenting, respectively, 8.04%, 20.63%, 31.47%, 15.36%, and 24.50% of the area of the basin. The reliability of this method was tested by a Flood susceptibility analysis. The results generated by the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) model are similar to those of previous historical events. Realistic and applicable solutions have been proposed to minimize the impact of these floods as much as possible.

Flood Risk Assessment and Mapping in the Hadejia River Basin, Nigeria, Using Hydro-Geomorphic Approach and Multi-Criterion Decision-Making Method

“…The area has two distinct types of savanna vegetation of Sudan Savanna and Sahel Savanna. The major economic activity in the basin is agriculture [49], with about 80% of its surface area being arable land, supporting about 85% of the total population [34,41].…”

“…A Geographic Information System (GIS) is an important tool for mapping flood risk [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Behazin et al [18] and Ikirri et al [34] argued that the integration of remote sensing and GIS techniques coupled with the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) are the best techniques for flood risk and vulnerability assessment, especially in areas with sparse or outdated data. This technique was adopted here for flood risk mapping and vulnerability assessment in the Hadejia River watershed due to limited data.…”

“…Stefanidis et al [36] employed a GIS and freely available data obtained from OpenStreetMap to analyse flood extent zones in Greece. Another study by Ikirri et al [34] utilized a GIS and the AHP to analyse flood plain zones in the Taguenit Wadi watershed, Lakhssas, Morocco, by combining seven parameters influencing extreme phenomena. Moreover, Yi [37] combined FEMA flood maps and the USGS National structure database and assessed the exposure of Critical Infrastructures in the United States using a GIS-based approach.…”

Evaluation of Flood Hazard Potency in Jakarta based on Multi-criteria Analysis

“…In general, flow accumulation in Jakarta tends to be homogeneous due to the flat topography of the area (Ng et al, 2012). The higher of accumulation flow in an area will be directly proportional to the potential for the area to experience flooding (Ikirri et al, 2022;Mahmoud and Gan, 2018). On the other hand, areas with low accumulated flow rates have less potential to experience flooding.…”

Flash Flood Susceptibility Assessment Based on Morphometric Aspects and Hydrological Approaches in the Pai River Basin, Mae Hong Son, Thailand

“…Considering the application of FFPI for Kyushu Island, Japan, the researchers found that a few hydrograph characteristics, such as the time to peak or peak discharge, were considered in the study. In Morocco, the flash hazard index (FHI) was used to generate the flood susceptibility mapping using rainfall, slope, flow accumulation, drainage network density, distance from rivers, permeability, and land use [11]. In the flash flood guidance provided by the US National Weather Service, the peak time of the hydrograph is a parameter that should be considered in the system [12].…”