Mapping of Flood-Prone Areas Utilizing GIS Techniques and Remote Sensing: A Case Study of Duhok, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

One of the most common types of natural disaster, floods can happen anywhere on Earth, except in the polar regions. The severity of the damage caused by flooding can be reduced by putting proper management and protocols into place. Using remote sensing and a geospatial methodology, this study attempts to identify flood-vulnerable areas of the central district of Duhok, Iraq. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique was used to give relative weights to 12 contributing parameters, including elevation, slope, distance from the river, rainfall, land use land cover, soil, lithology, topographic roughness index, topographic wetness index, aspect, the sediment transport index, and the stream power index in order to calculate the Flood Hazard Index (FHI). The relative importance of each criterion was revealed by a sensitivity analysis of the parameter values. This research developed a final flood susceptibility map and identified high-susceptible zones. This was classified anywhere from very low to very high classifications for its potential flood hazard. The generated map indicates that 44.72 km2 of the total land area of the study area in Duhok city has a very high susceptibility to flooding, and that these areas require significant attention from government authorities in order to reduce flood vulnerability.