A Report on developing flood hazard map of New Delhi,

India
- Akshay Singh Rathore
M1, Civil Engineering

1. Introduction:
Yamuna is the main river of Union territory of Delhi which flows in its Easterly
direction from North to South. This river is an alluvial river and hence has got a
meandering tendency. In the past this river has caused serious flood problems
in U.T. of Delhi by inundating large areas during flood season and disturbing the
normal life of Delhi-ties. Prior to construction of Shahdara Marginal Bund and
Left Marginal Bund in 1956, this river used to inundate the trans-Yamuna areas
very often (nearly every year). In right side also before construction of Right
Marginal Bund in 1977-78, most of the areas of Northern Delhi in Alipur block
used to be inundated under deep waters. This has been the result of
inadequacy of flood protection measures adopted in Delhi area in the past.
Even in 1978 floods i.e. after the construction of Right Marginal Embankment
upstream of Wazirabad upto Delhi-Haryana border the area of Alipur Block and
even Model Town colony of Delhi city area was inundated in deep water due to
a breach in this embankment. The main city areas of Delhi and New Delhi and
Trans-Yamuna Area of Shahdara Block are although protected by embankments
but there also remains a danger to breaches which may endanger the normal
life of the residents in these areas. The floods of the years of 1924, 1947,
1955,1956, 1967, 1971, 1975, 1976, 1978 are the main examples of the
 flooding in River Yamuna when the normal lives of the residents of Delhi were
either disturbed or threatened, badly.

2. Methodology:
To make a flood hazard map, the capacity of river flow is identified and the
broken points on the embankment are to be identified. Then the design
rainfall is analysed, and the high-water discharge is estimated. The dyke
break point setting is done and the results are super imposed on one
another to obtain the base of flood hazard map.

Firstly, the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) 30m resolution data
was obtained from the USGS (United States Geological Survey). The
ArcMAP software was used to build the water shed area on the obtained
SRTM dataset.

The following processes were applied subsequently to obtain the final

watershed area:

• Fill: Geoprocessing tool that fills sinks in a surface raster to remove

small imperfections in the data.
• Flow Direction: Takes a surface as input and outputs a raster
showing the direction of flow out of each cell.

• Flow accumulation: Geoprocessing tool that creates a raster of

accumulated flow to each cell. A weight factor can optionally be
applied but is not applied in this case.

• Raster calculation: Builds and executes a single Map Algebra

expression using Python syntax in a calculator-like interface.
• Making Stream Links (Hydrology): Assigns unique values to
sections of a raster linear network between intersections.

• Stream Order (Hydrology): Assigning a numeric order to links in a

stream network. This order is a method for identifying and
classifying types of streams based on their numbers of tributaries.

• Basin flow: To create a raster delineating all drainage basins. The

drainage basins are delineated within the analysis window by
identifying ridge lines between basins. The input flow direction
raster is analysed to find all sets of connected cells that belong to
the same drainage basin. The drainage basins are created by
locating the pour points at the edges of the analysis window
(where water would pour out of the raster), as well as sinks, then
identifying the contributing area above each pour point. This
results in a raster of drainage basins.
• Watershed flow: A watershed is the upslope area that contributes
flow to a common outlet as concentrated drainage. It can be part
of a larger watershed and can also contain smaller watersheds,
called subbasins. The outlet, or pour point, is the point on the
surface at which water flows out of an area. It is the lowest point
along the boundary of a watershed.

• Raster watershed: A raster representing the direction of flow is

created. The watershed area is extracted and rasterised using
raster to polygon command which is used to determine the
contributing area.
3. Future Work:
I would take few more SRTM Datasets from the USGS so as to cover the
full watershed area of the river Yamuna in Delhi. Then the inundated areas
would be calculated for 1m high above mean sea level (MSL) flood, 2m
high above MSL flood, 3m high above MSL flood and 4m high above MSL
flood. Then I will corelate the results with the land use pattern of the city
and suggest possible relocation and evacuation areas for the people living
in the low-lying areas. I would also try to compare the results obtained by
my analysis with the existing flood hazard map of the city o Delhi.