River Inundation and Hazard Mapping a Case Study of

Susan River Kumasi

CollinsFosu1, Eric K. Forkuo2 and Mensa Y. Asare3
Department of Geomatic Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science &
Technology, Private Mail Bag, Kumasi, Ghana
Email: 1fosucoll@hotmail.co, 2eforkuo.soe@knust.edu.gh.com,
3
asare.mensah@csrdevelopments.com
Abstract
In recent times there have been extreme climatic conditions due to climate
change. As a result of this, the intensity of rainfall has increased tremendously
causing floods in many areas and countries worldwide. It is therefore prudent that
such a natural hazard is addressed in a way to reduce the impact it causes on
people and the environment. To achieve the aim of river modelling and hazard
mapping using a Geographic Information System, spatial technology and the
HEC-RAS hydraulic model were used as tools. In this research, a DEM which is
basic input for any effective flood modelling was created from contour data. The
geometric data needed for the modelling process were extracted from the DEM,
topographic map and field measurements. A remotely sensed image was
classified into various land cover types which was used for estimating the
roughness coefficient of the various cover types during the modelling process.
The model results were displayed and analysed in ESRI ArcGIS environment.
The flooded area was geometrically overlaid on the topographic map to delineate
the affected buildings. The hazard map produced clearly shows the spatial
distribution of the flooded area which is located at areas with relatively low relief.
The total flooded area covers an approximately 2.93km2. Also a flood depth of
4.01637 was obtained as the maximum water level. Generally, high water depth
occurred along the main channel and spreads gradually to the floodplains.
Keywords: Flood Modelling, DEM, Hydraulic Model, GIS, Hazard Mapping, River
Inundation
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Flooding is one of the serious natural hazards in the world (Seyedeh et al, 2008),
and it accounts for 40% of all deaths caused by natural disasters, with most flood
events occurring in developing, tropical regions (OhlandTapsell, 2000). Floods
are of many types including flash flooding (Gruntfest and Handmer, 2001), flooding due to rising ground water (Burt et al., 2002), coastal flooding (Nicholls, 2002)

and flooding due to the opening or breaking of a dam or reservoir (Forkuo, 2011).
Floods resulting from excessive rainfall within a short period of time and consequent high river discharge damage crops and infrastructure. They also result in
siltation of the reservoirs and hence limit the capacity of existing dams to control
floods (Sanyal and Lu, 2004).
The damages caused by flooding cannot be overlooked in terms of loss of life,
property, displacement of people and disruption of Socio-economic activities as
well as the loss of valuable agricultural lands. To the end user and a layman, the
expected results of this research will be the production of flood hazard maps.
These maps will determine the areas prone to flooding when the river inundates
their banks and will provide basic information for land use planning. It will allow
developing appropriate development plans for new urban areas and t will also
enable adequate evaluation of costs of flood and flood reduction benefits.
The study area which is the second largest city in Ghana is characterized by an
undulating terrain with the highest and lowest elevation around 340 metres and
204 metres respectively above mean sea level. It is found in one of the tropical
regions of Ghana and as such experiences double maxima rainfall peaks periods
every year (March to July and September to November). Increase in population
and urban sprawl has contributed to the change in land use as people are converting floodplains to industrial and residential use. Consistent and heavy rainfall
causes floods in most communities around rivers and other low lying areas destroying properties ranging from houses, personal belongings and food crop. The
undulating nature of the terrain makes it easier for low lying areas to flood as river
channels has been silted naturally by erosion and artificially by the dumping of
both liquid and solid waste in them.
However, not much research has been done on floods in the study area and
more especially the Susan River which experiences a large overflow. It is in this
light that this research focuses on using GIS and spatial technology to model the
watershed area of the Susan River and to generate hazard maps for urban
decision making. That is, the prime objective of this study is to model the
watershed area of the Susan River for flood assessment and mapping using GIS,
Spatial technology and Hydrologic Engineering Centers River Analysis System
(HEC-RAS) hydraulic model. Current with the objective of this research is the
need to: to investigate the potential causes of flood in the area, to produce flood
hazard map based on the highest flood level, and to produce land cover map of
the study area.
Various scholars and researchers have compared the popular one- and twodimensional hydraulic models (including HEC-RAS, SOBEK, MIKE 2, and FLO2D) which have been developed by various institutions and research centers.

Their conclusions point out the capabilities, strengths and shortfalls of these
models. Some of these comparisons can be found in the works of MHL (2006),
Yang et al (2004) and Hicks and Peacock (2005). As stated earlier, out of the
numerous hydraulic models, HEC-RAS was chosen for this research based on
among other reasons the fact that it is an open source application and its
geometric data input and simulation can be done in GIS environment.
It is therefore apparent that Geographic Information System (GIS) and other spatial technologies are currently the most widely used facilities in the management
of floods. The main advantage of using GIS for flood management is that, it does
not only generate a visualization of flooding but also creates potential to further
analyse this product to estimate probable damage due to flood (Hausmannet al,
1998). The widely known functionalities of GIS (input, analysis and presentation
of spatial data) are essential for flood analyses, modelling and hazard mapping. It
is believed that these advances will provide for a more efficient and a more accurate alternative to traditional methods for studying watersheds (Johnson et al,
2001). GIS coupled with a hydraulic model has become a useful tool to run a
simulation and to interpret results in a spatial context. It is for these reasons that
this research focuses on using GIS and a hydraulic model as tools for river inundation analysis and hazard mapping.
This research provides a realistic view of using GIS analysis and its display
capabilities with hydrologic and hydraulic modelling tools for flood hazard
mapping. In next Section, the methodology used in this research is introduced.
This focuses on the set of tools and methods of the modelling process, method
used for acquiring remotely sensed land cover to estimate the friction coefficients
of the various land cover types. Also, it outlines the mode of data capture and
processing to come out with the expected results and calibration of the model.
Section three contains the results obtained from the processed data and its
analyses and Section four concludes the research and outline some
recommendations for future research.
2.0 MATERIALS AND METHOD
2.1 Study Area
The Susan River starts from Mamponteng in the Kwabre district of Ashanti Region. It enters into Kumasi metropolitan Area (KMA) in the north eastern part at a
northern latitude of 06o 34 29 to 06o 33 24 and a western longitude of -01o 24
43 to -01o 28 38 where it joins another river. As can be seen in Figure 1, this
river meanders through six Communities with undulating relief descending about
12km before it finally joins the Subin River at Asokwa.

Figure 1: Location of the Study Area

The geology of the area consists mainly of granites. Along the banks are fine
sand and clay deposits eroded from upstream. Land use on the banks is mainly
arable and pastoral agriculture, with some urban settlements and slumps. It is
characterized by double maxima rainfall. The average annual rainfall recorded is
about 1300mm with a temperature of between 20oC to 33oC and a fairly moderate relative humidity.
2.2 Data Capture Phase
Figure 2 summarizes the step by step methodology of the river modelling process. The spatial data used for the development of the flood delineation models
was obtained from a variety of sources. Because of the several sources, the data
were in different projections. In order to utilize this information in a GIS environment, all spatial data was transformed to a common datum (i.e., Ghana datum).The data capture identified the various data set needed for this research,
and the data development activities needed to ensure continues homogeneity,

spatial connectivity, and completeness of each data sets. The elevation data
which was used to generate the DEM of the study area was obtained from the
Survey Department of Ghanas town sheet data in a digital format. The data was
produced from low-altitude aerial photography and mapped witha contour interval
of two metres. Land cover data was obtained from a classified ASTER image, as
mentioned above. Field measurements were made to collect hydrologic data
such as, channel width, channel depth, channel slope, cross-sections and flood
levels. Also various land cover types in the river basin was identified which
served as signatures in the land cover classification of the ASTER Image of the
area.

Figure 2: Steps in River Flood Model Design (Adopted from HEC-RAS Users Manual and
ArcGIS Online Manual)

2.3 Creating DEMs for Hydrologically Correct Surfaces

DEMs are increasingly used for visual and mathematical analysis of topography,
landscapes and landforms, as well as modelling of surface processes (Millaresis
and Argialas, 2000, Tucker et al., 2001). The accuracy of a DEM is determined
by the data type and the actual sampling technique of the surface when creating
the DEM. A DEM offers the most common way of showing topographic
information and even enables the modelling of flow across topography, a
controlling factor in distributed models of landform processes (Dietrich et al.,
1993; Desmet and Govers, 1995; Wang and Liu, 2006). In this research, a DEM
(Digital Elevation Model) of the catchment was generated in ESRI ArcGIS
software.
The interpolation procedure has been designed to take advantage of the types of
input data commonly available and the known characteristics of elevation
surfaces. The method uses an iterative finite difference interpolation technique. It
is optimized to have the computational efficiency of local interpolation methods
such as inverse distance weighted interpolation, without losing the surface
continuity of global interpolation methods, such as kriging and spline. It is
essentially a discretized thin plate spline technique (Wahba, 1990), in which the
roughness penalty has been modified to allow the fitted DEM to follow abrupt
changes in terrain, such as streams and ridges. Water is the primary erosive
force determining the general shape of most landscapes. For this reason, most
landscapes have many hill tops and few sinks, resulting in a connected drainage
pattern.
The Topo to Raster tool in ArcGIS 3D analyst uses this knowledge about
surfaces and imposes constraints on the interpolation process that results in a
connected drainage structure and correct representation of ridges and streams
(ArcGIS, 2011). This imposed drainage condition produces higher accuracy
surfaces with less input data. The quantity of input data can be up to an order of
magnitude less than normally required to adequately describe a surface with
digitized contours, further minimizing the expense of obtaining reliable DEMs.
The program acts conservatively in removing sinks and will not impose the
drainage conditions in locations that would contradict the input elevation data.
Evaluation procedures were employed to assess the reliability of the generated
DEM, as stated by Lagacherie et al (1996), the accuracy of any hydrologic model
depends mostly on the accuracy of the DEM used. In the first evaluation,
contours were created from the DEM and compared to the input contour data.
The contours were created one-half the inputted contour interval to examine the
results between contours. Displaying the original contours and the newly created
contours on top of one another helped identify interpolation errors.

Secondly, visual comparison was done to compare the optional output drainage
dataset with known streams and ridges.Two DEMs structures were created for
this research. A Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) format (Figure 3.3a), which
represent the surface as a network of adjacent triangles whose vertices are the
same points. Each triangle represents a uniform slope steepness and direction.
Secondly, a regular grid data structure which consist of a matrix of elevation
values. These values refer to equally spaced points or mesh point (Figure 3.3b).
Since the input data was contours which are regularly spaced but with a distance
between them not coincident with the desired grid size, bilinear interpolation
method was used. With bilinear interpolation, a new value for a mesh point is
calculated from the four input mesh points surrounding it. The TIN format was
used to generate attribute data for the hydrologic model files.
Figure 3: A TIN Format (a) and a Raster Format (b) of the Generated DEMs

2.4 Land Cover and Use Classification

To obtain the land use and cover data of the study area in other to estimate the
friction coefficient of the various cover types, an ASTER satellite image of 2007
was classified. The image was at a spatial resolution of 15m. A total of seven
classes were selected upon prior field investigations. The image was taken
through four stages to generate a land cover classes of the study area. These
include: image pre-processing; feature extraction; selection of training data
(signatures); and selection of suitable classification approaches. The following
seven land cover and use classes were obtained; Bare land, Farm land, Micro
forest, Grass land, Open forest, Riparian and Settlement. After the classification,
100 sample points were obtained from the field for accuracy assessment. The
image classification was guided by reconnaissance information gathered from the
field of the study area and a classification accuracy of 77.8% was obtained from
the error matrix. Figure 4 shows the classified image with seven classes.
Figure 4: Classified Land Cover and Use Map using ASTER Image

2.5 Hydraulic Model (HEC-Ras)

HEC-RAS is a one-dimensional, water surface profiling application developed by
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Hydraulic Engineering Centre. It is
an integrated system of software, designed for interactive use in a multi-tasking,
multi-user network environment comprised of a graphical user interface (GUI),
separate hydraulic analysis components, data storage and management
capabilities, graphics and reporting facilities. It requires the construction of
defined land surface to be modelled and flow data for hydrologic events. It uses
geometric and flow data to calculate steady, gradually varied flow water surface
profiles (steady flow model) from energy loss computations.
Since its introduction several years ago, the user-friendly HEC-RAS has become
known as an excellent model for simulation of major systems (i.e., open channel
flow) and has become the main model to calculate floodplain elevations and
determine floodway encroachments. Its input parameters are cross sections of
the basin, including left and right bank locations, roughness coefficients or
Mannings coefficients. The HEC-RAS model was then used to develop floodplain
and flood hazard maps and the resulting results are discussed in Section 3.
2.6 Modelling Phase
This phase involved the combination of spatial, hydrologic and hydraulic data to
build a flood model for the catchment area. The basic data input for the model
was a DEM and a topographic map. From these data, the geometric data for the
model was generated using HEC-GeoRas, an extension of ESRIs ArcGIS
software. The set of procedures, tools and utilities of HEC-GeoRas was used to
generate the geometric data; stream centerline, main channel bank, flow path
centerline, cross-sectional cut lines and bridges (HEC-GeoRas, 2002). Attribute
data such as cross-section elevation, river stationing, river junctions were added
to the geometric data. After creating all the needed data for the hydrologic
modelling, the created data known as Ras layers were exported into HEC-RAS
application.
A detailed step-by-step procedure for the creation and attribution of the HECRAS layers can be found in the HEC-GeoRas users manual (HEC, 2002). In
HEC-RAS, other important hydraulic data such as discharge, mannings
coefficient and slope of the channel were also inputted. The flood model was then
run to compute the inundation by assuming steady and uniform flow
characteristics as they relate to an open channel. The model results was
exported and visualized in ArcGIS platform.

2.7 Hazard Mapping

In the hazard mapping phase, HEC-GeoRAS was used to extract water surface
profile data from HEC-RAS and incorporate it into a floodplain map in GIS. The
flooded area was delineated using the water surface data and the DEM created
for the catchment. The water surface TIN was converted to GRID based on the
rasterization cell size. It was then compared with the raster DEM to compute the
elevation difference within the bounding polygon. Water surface elevations
greater than the terrain elevation were stored in the inundation depth grid. The
inundation depth grid was then converted to a vector data set defining the floodplain boundary. After delineating the flood extend, a topographic map was overlaid on it to map the affected buildings and structures.
3.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The modelling of Susan River resulted in the creation of flood extent and hazard
map, water depth and flow velocity maps. Analysis of these maps has been carefully done giving explanations for the various scenarios. Also an overlay of the
flood extent map with the road and settlement data clearly identified the vulnerability areas.
3.1 Flood Extent and Hazard Map
The inundation map produced shows the flood extent at peak flow for the past
years. The spatial distribution of the flooded area is located at areas with relatively low relief which covers an area of about 2.93km2 (see Figure 4a). The
flooded area was also geometrically overlaid on the topographic map. The outcome of the overlay which is shown in Figure 4bclearly identifies the affected
structures (structures shown in cyan colour on map). Upon field investigations it
was recognized that these areas are very close to the river and the settlements
there are mostly slums. People living in these areas have very bad sanitation
conditions which has caused the river channel to be filled with solid waste.
As a result there is no free flow of water causing the area to flood more frequently. When the simulated result is studied critically, it can be found that the
flood polygon shows some discontinuity in some areas. This is because these
areas have steep river bed which causes water to move quickly downstream preventing inundation. Also some of the areas have high banks which serve as impedance to overflow. The major road crossing the river at the lower part (Kumasi
Accra road) has a bridge with very high embankment and as such has never
been flooded.

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Figure 5: Flood Hazard Map (a) and Flood Hazard Map with Affected Structures (a)

3.2 Flood Depth

The model results gave a flood depth close to zero as the minimum to a critical
height of 4.01637 meters for the catchment (see Figure 6a). In general, high
water depth occurred along the main channel and spreads gradually to the
floodplains. This can be attributed to the fact that the river has a lot of tributaries
which contributes to high inflow into the main channel. Also the river flows in
between slightly hilly terrain and, as such, rain water uphill flows rapidly into the
river channel.

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Fig. 6: Flood Water Depth (a) and Flood Flow Velocities (b)

3.3 Flow Velocity

The simulation produced variable flow velocities in the main channel and the
inundated floodplain. Generally, high velocities were recorded in the main
channel than the floodplains. The model results gave a minimum velocity of
0.045m/s to a maximum of 9.826m/s with high velocities occurring mostly in the
main channel (see Figure 6b).The spatial distribution of inundation flow velocity of
the catchment shows a correlation with the spatial distribution of the elevation as
high values flow velocities are observed at upstream and low values at
downstream. The high values at the upstream can be accredited to the steep
slope of the terrain whiles the low velocities at the downstream is attributed to the
flatness of the terrain.

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4.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This research work has shown clearly that Geographic Information System coupled with terrain model and remotely sensed data is vital in geospatial analysis of
the hydrologic cycle including watershed and flood plain delineation and hazard
mapping. The integration of HEC-RAS and GIS has become accepted worldwide,
and provides a more accurate representation of discharge and stage due of flood
events. The watershed area of the Susan river has been successfully modelled,
map showing the flooded areas along the Susan river has been delineated. A
land cover map covering the catchment has also been produce and this will help
in further research in areas of accessing infrastructural and agricultural damage
estimation and evacuation strategies.
Although the persistent flooded area along the Susan river has been delineated,
there were few uncertainties which cannot be overlooked. Periodic change in the
topography of the flood plain contributed in some mismatch between the model
results and the surveyed data gathered from the field. The lack of current terrain
data for floodplain delineation affected the outcome of the model. Current satellite
images of high resolution are therefore needed so that an effective terrain models
can be created since the accuracy of any hydrological model depends largely on
the accuracy of the terrain model used.
With the possibility of increasing frequency and intensity of rainfall events as a
result of climate change, increasing population which is resulting to land use
changes in urban areas, it is more prudent to model floodplains and low lying
areas for both emergency management and development planning.
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Proceedings of Global Geospatial Conference 2012
Qubec City, Canada, 14-17 May 2012

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