Assessment of flood vulnerability in the Bodva catchment using multicriteria analysis and geographical information systems

Abstract

The identification of flood vulnerability consists of two basic phases. Firstly, the effective factors causing floods are identified. Secondly, approaches to multicriteria analysis (MCA) in a geographical information system (GIS) environment are applied and these approaches are evaluated in order to prepare a flood vulnerability map. In the analyses, the main causative factors for flooding in a basin area are taken into account, such as soil type, daily precipitation, land use, size of the catchment and basin slope. A case study of flood vulnerability identification in the Bodva river basin in eastern Slovakia is presented in the paper.