Development of A Web based GIS Solution for Flood Inundation Mapping and Assessment in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Introduction Geographic information system (GIS) is a strong tool in flood hazard mapping, mitigation, and management. GIS-based approach provides the capability to measure the flood inundation. Integration of web technologies with GIS (Web-GIS) is quite significant to accomplish the aim. Methodology In this research, HEC-RAS 1D was used to map the flooded area around River Ravi at Lahore. The output of HEC-RAS with Web-GIS stack were used to build the interactive flood measuring tool. The Web-GIS stack used for this study was Geo Server, PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Geo Server provides the OGC implemented standards with vendor specific capabilities like WMS Animator in Geo Server animate the flood inundation on the User-Interface (UI) and extent animation to make visual interpretations. CQL filter is vendor specific capability in Geo Server used to measure the flood inundation. Results The Output maps of HEC-RAS are capable enough to understand flood inundation and other damage assessments not only to analyst but also the layman. The working and animated layers are shown in Result section of this research. Conclusion This web-based flood inundation is robust, user-friendly, and expandable for more features, scenarios, and conditions. This research concludes that visual and web-based data is near to mind understanding for common person intellectuals.