Flood Hazard Zonation Using Gis-based Multi-parametric Analytical Hierarchy Process

Abstract Flood is considered to be a serious environmental hazard, owing to its devastating consequence on human life. Tripura, a small state of northeast India has faced large scale flood events over the last few decades. The present study is an attempt to identify flood hazard zones along the lower course of the Dhalai River flowing through the Dhalai district of Tripura. An integrated approach of remote sensing and GIS coupled together with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to identify the flood hazard zones of the study area and nine parameters were selected for this purpose. Thematic maps of the parameters were reclassified after assigning ranks to different classes. A pair-wise comparison matrix among all the parameters was prepared using AHP to determine the relative weight of each parameter. Finally, flood hazard zonation map of the study area was prepared using raster calculator of Arc GIS 10.1. The results revealed that 109.69 km2 (27.65%) of the study area fall under low flood risk category. At the same time, around 114.46 km2 (28.85%) and 90.43 km2 (22.80%) areas fall under moderate and high flood risk zone respectively. The study also disclosed that the high risk zone has maximum concentration of agricultural land (68.63%) and settled area (9.77%) in comparison to the other two zones which has increased vulnerability of flood hazard. The information derived from the present study could be very much effective for the planners to prepare proper strategies to reduce the vulnerability of flood hazard in the study area.