An Integrated Assessment of Flood Risk Using Geospatial and Multi-Criteria Based Analysis: A Case Study from Mayurakshi River Basin, India

Abstract

Flood is considered to be one of the most important and common hydro-meteorological events and cause damage to the social system. A heuristic framework to assess the distributive pattern of flood risk is, therefore, an essential need for poli-cymakers. This study aims to delineate the spatial distribution of flood risk in the Mayurakshi River Basin (MRB) region using an inclusive methodological foundation of comprehending geospatial and multi-criteria techniques. Spatial distribution of 10 natural and 8 socio-economic factors contributing to flood in the MRB region have been attained to delineate the Flood Susceptibility Index (FSI) and Flood Vulnera-bility Index (FVI) of the MRB region using Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Infor-mation System (GIS) and multi-criteria based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Finally, after successful inculcation of FSI and FVI, a Flood Risk Index (FRI) has been adopted to represent the spatial distinction of the intensity of flood risk in the MRB region. Results show that the lower basin region of MRB has comparatively higher FSI and FVI which in turn resulted in a higher degree of FRI concerning the middle and higher basins. The West Bengal part of MRB has 46.74% of the area consisting of very high—high flood risk compared to the 1.94% area of the Jhark-hand part. This study thus tries to introduce a holistic methodological framework in the comprehensive apprehension of flood risk and after synthesizing all the results, it calls for some area-specific policy intervention for flood management in a more sustainable and radical manner.