Mapa nacional de Índice de inundación

Abstract

Floods are associated with factors such as: 1) river overflow; 2) flash floods, 3) high tides associated with hurricanes; and 4) breakage of control structures. Unfortunately, historical records of floods are practically inexistent. Therefore, risk assessments are generally based on indirect methods such as physical-mathematical modeling. The development of a National Flood Index Map for the identification of regions prone to floods is presented. The index proposed is based on the topographic index developed by Beven (1979) but additionally considers soil, hydrological and climatological factors. The process is detailed for the hydrologic region Lerma-Santiago. In addition, the results are compared with corresponding simulations of a routing model for the floodplain of Tabasco. The results indicate that the index is able to capture reasonably well the perennial and ephemeral flooded regions. The Mexican Flood Index Map based on the proposed methodology is included.