Investigating flood susceptibility and vulnerability through geospatial techniques in Kerala State, India

George, Mohan Navya

Investigating flood susceptibility and vulnerability through geospatial techniques in Kerala State, India

Thesis / Dissertation

2023

Abstract

A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. Flooding is a complex phenomenon caused by various meteorological, hydrological, geomorphological, and anthropogenic factors. Flood susceptibility identifies the most vulnerable areas that are flood prone based on the region's physical features. Flood vulnerability is the degree to which people or man-made structures are affected by, or unable to cope with the effects of flooding. One of the key factors in risk management and flood damage assessment is determining flood vulnerability. There has been an increased need to understand floods as they are recurring more frequently. The objectives of this study were to determine the land use/cover changes in Kerala State over the last 45 years, model flood susceptibility for the years 1973, 2001 and 2018 and finally determine flood vulnerability in Kerala for the year 2018. These objectives were achieved through Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. Image classification of Landsat images helped identify the change in land use/cover. The flood susceptibility model was attained by processing the physical characteristics and using the multi-criteria weighted analysis. The flood vulnerability model was achieved by processing the copying, social, infrastructure and physical vulnerability. Again, multi-criteria weighted analysis was used. Results show that in the year 2018, 50.31 % of the area had a medium flood susceptibility and 28.74% of the area had a high susceptibility. The areas of high flood susceptibility and medium flood susceptibility are visually seen to be around the high concentration of built-up area. The high susceptibility regions have only increased since 1973 as the built-up area increased. Regarding flood vulnerability, most of the State (60.59%) had a medium flood vulnerability in 2018, followed by high vulnerability areas taking up 28.48% of the land. The high vulnerability areas are found along the west coast of the State. This study brings awareness that the flood susceptibility regions are increasing year by year and that the State has areas that are highly prone to flood vulnerability. The driving factors behind the increase in flood susceptibility and high flood prone areas are the increase in rainfall, population and the built environment.

Keywords

Engineering

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