A GIS tool for cost-effective delineation of flood-prone areas. (July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Samela, Caterina; Albano, Raffaele; Sole, Aurelia; Manfreda, Salvatore
• Is Part Of: Computers, environment and urban systems. Volume 70(2018)
• Page Start: 43
• Page End: 52
• Publication Date: 2018-07
• Subjects: Flood susceptibility -- Digital Elevation Model (DEM) -- Geomorphic Flood Index -- Linear binary classification -- Data scarce environments -- Geographic Information System (GIS); City planning -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 303.4834
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2018.01.013
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0198-9715

Abstract

Abstract: Delineation of flood hazard and flood risk areas is a critical issue, but practical difficulties regularly make complete achievement of the task a challenge. In data-scarce environments (e.g. ungauged basins, large-scale analyses), useful information about flood hazard exposure can be obtained using geomorphic methods. In order to advance this field of research, we implemented in the QGIS environment an automated DEM-based procedure that exhibited high accuracy and reliability in identifying the flood-prone areas in several test sites located in Europe, the United States and Africa. This tool, named Geomorphic Flood Area tool (GFA tool), enables rapid and cost-effective flood mapping by performing a linear binary classification based on the recently proposed Geomorphic Flood Index (GFI). The GFA tool provides a user-friendly strategy to map flood exposure over large areas. A demonstrative application of the GFA tool is presented in which a detailed flood map was derived for Romania. Highlights: An open-source QGIS plugin named Geomorphic Flood Area – tool (GFA – tool) is proposed. The GFA – tool is an automatic DEM-based procedure for flood-prone areas mapping in data-poor environments. The GFA – tool allows the flood mapping using the existing flood studies as training areas. A demonstrative application of the GFA – tool is presented for the entire state of Romania.