Flood Hazard and Risk Zonation in North Bihar Using Satellite-Derived Historical Flood Events and Socio-Economic Data

Abstract

North Bihar is one of the most flood-affected regions of India. Frequent flooding caused significant loss of life and severe economic damages. In this study, hydroclimatic conditions and historical flood events during the period of 2001 to 2020 were coupled over different basins in North Bihar. The main objective of this study is to assess the severity of floods by estimating flood hazards, vulnerability and risk in North Bihar. The uniqueness of this study is to assess flood risk at the village level as no such study was performed earlier. Other thematic data, namely, land-use and drainage networks, were also utilised with flood maps to validate the severity of the event. MOD09A1 satellite data (during 2001–2020) derived indices were used to derive inundation extents and flood frequency. Socio-economic vulnerability (SEV) was derived based on seven census parameters (i.e., population density, house-hold density, literacy rate, agricultural labour, and cultivator, total male, and female) and coupled with flood hazard to derive flood risk over the study region. The study exhibited that a total ~34% of the geographical area of North Bihar was inundated in the last 20 years and the maximum flood extent was seen in 2020. Flood risk map exhibited that ~7%, ~8%, ~13%, ~4%, and ~2% of the geographical area was mapped under Very High, High, Moderate, Low, and Very Low categories, respectively. The 2770 and 3535 number of villages was categorized under Very High and High flood risk zone which are located in north-central and central-western regions. These findings can be applied to distinguish and classify areas of various risk zones to assist in flood mitigation and management activities.