A GIS Vulnerability Assessment Tool to Support Strategic Planning of Cities Facing Flash Floods – Case Study of Nuweiba City – Egypt

Abstract

As a part of climate change; flash floods are rapidly increasing and becoming more severe, challenging more and more cities around the world. According to the recent facts published by the UN and the WHO, their risk increases particularly in low-and mid-income countries, where it exceeds the ability of communities to cope with it. This sheds the light on the importance of the community’s pre-impact conditions, which determine its vulnerability to floods. This research develops a vulnerability assessment tool and its associated methodology as an effective tool to be integrated into the strategic planning of existing cities facing flash floods. It is an indicators-based GIS tool to Assess Physical and Social vulnerability. Nuweiba city on the gulf of Aqaba-Egypt was chosen as a case study. However, it is located in an arid zone, and suffers from frequent and severe flash floods. It could be considered the effluent of Wadi Watir's main watershed (3509 km2). A GIS model has been developed to apply the Physical part of the developed assessment tool. So, Detailed data on the city’s urban structure, DEM and satellite images were integrated and processed to extract the evaluated layer for each vulnerability indicator. Then, a weighted overlay of these indicators was applied to produce the final vulnerability map. The results showed a high level of applicability for the developed model, however, the vulnerability map was compared to the available strategic plan for the city. Accordingly, several changes to the plan were recommended to achieve a more sustainable future for the city.