Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
DOI: 10.5923/j.ajgis.20130201.01
Abstract Floods are one of the most common hazards in the world, affect ing peoples lives and livelihoods. Flood
hazard mapping and flood shelters suitability analysis are v ital elements in appropriate land use planning for flood-prone
areas. This paper describes application of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Info rmation Systems (GIS) in identifying
flood hazard zones and flood shelters and are therefore important tools for planners and decision makers. The purpose of
this article is to describe a simp le and efficient methodology to accurately delineate flood inundated areas, flood-hazard
areas, and suitable areas for flood shelter to min imize flood impacts. Possible extent of flooding and suitable location flood
shelter sites were modeled and mapped for Sindh Province in Pakistan, using the software ArcGIS model builder. The
output was validated using inundation maps based on flood events that took place in 2010 in Pakistan. These were mapped
using object-based image analysis (OBIA) imp lemented in eCognition software. The catastrophic flood of 2010 inundated a
total area of 7579 km2, while the modeled result indicated the hazard area to be 6216 km2 out of 46138 km2.
Discrepancies in modeled and mapped results are insignificant and acceptable considering the manual flood management
interventions which are beyond the capability of models to represent. Thus, this method is robust enough to develop flood
hazard zoning maps and map shelter sites for flood management.
Keywords
1. Introduction
More than half the wo rld's populat ion lives in Asia,
which is appro ximately one-fifth of the earth's land area. As
natural disasters increase in both intensity and severity
around the world, the Asian region continues to suffer a
disproportionate number of hazard events and related losses
in lives, infrastructure, stability, and economic progress. In
the period 19942004 alone, Asia accounted for one third of
1,562 flood disasters worldwide and nearly 60,000people
were killed in floods[1]. A flood is an overflo w of an
expanse of water that submerges the land. Flood hazards are
the most common and destructive of all natural disasters
and are a constant threat to life and property. Each year,
flood d isasters result in t remendous losses and social
disruption worldwide. Over the past 30 years, floods have
been the most catastrophic natural disaster affect ing, on
average, about 80 million people per year or half of the total
po pu lat io n affect ed by any n atu ral d is aster, caus ing
* Corresponding author:
kuddin@icimod.org (Kabir Uddin)
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/ajgis
Copyright 2013 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved
Kabir Uddin et al.: Application of Remote Sensing and GIS for Flood Hazard
M anagement: A Case Study from Sindh Province, Pakistan
2. Methodology
2.1. Study Area
The study area is located in the south-eastern part of Nepal
and seven districts of Sindh province (Figure 1). Sindh lies in
a tropical to subtropical region; it is hot in the summer and
mild to warm in winter. Temperatures frequently rise above
46C between May and August, and drops to a minimu m
average of 2C during December and January in the northern
and elevated regions. Annual rainfall averages about seven
inches, falling main ly during July and August. The province
is mostly arid, with scant vegetation except for the irrigated
Indus Valley.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Kabir Uddin et al.: Application of Remote Sensing and GIS for Flood Hazard
M anagement: A Case Study from Sindh Province, Pakistan
Results were selected and the optimu m site identified for the
new flood shelter fro m alternative sites.
Figure 4.
3. Results
Legend
Restricted
Not suitable
3
4
5
6
7
Most Suitable
Figure 5.
Very
high
1335
1079
944
941
High
Moderate
Low
3087
1218
2788
905
1706
4182
1840
1380
945
9316
41
1976
Very
low
439
0
0
0
792
1572
666
710
355
1064
1647
770
2351
20
2070
0
0
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
4. Conclusions
Based on the results of this case study for Sindh province,
it can be concluded that geospatial technology provides the
best potential to analyze and provide results required for
prompt and effective decision-making on floods. This
comprehensive flood hazard and flood shelters model
developed in ArcGIS ModelBuilder can be easily handled by
novice GIS users. The object-based remote sensing
technique and geographical information systems were used
to classify the extent of floods. Object-based classification
systems allow d ifferent rules for d ifferent classes that can be
used further for similar types of flood mapping. The studies
support the conclusion that information derived fro m
different imagery can be very valuable to operational users
for planning flood-related emergency response. Natural
flood disaster is common and cannot be stop. Remote
sensing is an efficient tool for flood mapping and suitability
analysis and can be useful for emergency response and
disaster preparedness.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledged the SERVIR-Himalaya in itiative with
the support from USAID and NASA. Our gratitude goes
especially to Mr. Birendra Bajracharya Sr. GIS Specialist,
MENRIS for the encouragement and support extended to
bring this paper.
REFERENCES
[1]