Flood hazard mapping remains challenging in regions with limited hydrological and topographic data, despite increasing flood risk driven by climate change and land-use dynamics. This study aims to demonstrate that preliminary flood inundation maps can be developed under data-scarce conditions by integrating limited field observations with publicly available datasets and simplified hydrodynamic modeling. The Khlong Wat watershed in southern Thailand, where flood hazard maps had not previously existed despite recurrent flood events, was used as a case study. Flood simulations were conducted using the HEC-RAS model with a simplified terrain representation to approximate river bathymetry, acknowledging uncertainties in channel geometry. Hydrodynamic results show a systematic increase in flood extent and depth with increasing flood recurrence intervals, with inundated areas expanding from 1.43 km2 for a 10-year flood to 4.02 km2 and 5.97 km2 for 100- and 500-year events, respectively. Agricultural land is consistently the most affected category, accounting for more than two-thirds of the flooded area across all scenarios, with rubber plantations being the dominant land use. Urban exposure increases with flood magnitude, although most buildings remain affected by shallow inundation below 0.5 m. The results confirm that meaningful flood hazard assessments can be achieved in data-limited regions and provide a transferable framework to support flood risk management and spatial planning in similar environments.
Kaiwong et al. (Sun,) studied this question.