Author(s)

Muhammad Farhan Ul Moazzam^1*, Byung Gul Lee^1*, Atta Ur Rahman², Nasir Farid², Ghani Rahman³

¹Department of Civil Engineering, College of Ocean Science, Jeju National University, Jeju, South Korea.
²Department of Geography, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.
³Department of Geography, University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan.

Flood is one of the most predominant disasters around the globe and frequently occurring phenomena in the northern part of Pakistan. In this study, the effects of various divisions of flood inventory and combinations of conditioning factors were assessed for the preparation of final susceptibility map. The flood inventory map was prepared for Charsadda by visual interpretation of Landsat-7 image alongside the field survey and a total of 161 flood locations were mapped. The flood inventory was subsequently divided into training and validation datasets, 129 (80%) and 112 (70%) locations for training the model and 32 (20%) and 49 (30%) for validation of the model. In this study, nine conditioning factors were used (Elevation, Slope, Aspect, Curvature, Plan curvature, Profile curvature, Proximity to river, roads, and Land use/land cover) for the development of flood susceptibility map. All the conditioning factors were correlated with flood inventory map using the information value method. The final susceptibility maps were validated using prediction rate and success rate curve. The results from validation showed that the areas under curve in the prediction rate curve for the models are: Model A (99.47%), Model B (95.04%), and Model C (94.06%), respectively. The Area under curve (AUC) in the success rate curve obtained for the three models are: Model A (95.03%), Model B (86.91%), and Model C (89.67%), respectively. Eventually, the susceptibility maps were classified into five susceptibility zones. The success rate and prediction rate curve indicated that model A has more accuracy in comparison to model B and model C; though, the results obtained from prediction and success rate curve indicated that all the models are reliable and has no significant difference between the susceptibility maps. Consequently, results obtained from this study are useful for researchers, disaster managers, and decision-makers to manage the flood-prone areas in the study area to mitigate the flood damages.

Flood Inventory, Information Value Method, Flood Conditioning Factors, Flood Susceptibility Index

Moazzam, M. , Lee, B. , Rahman, A. , Farid, N. and Rahman, G. (2020) Spatio-Statistical Analysis of Flood Susceptibility Assessment Using Bivariate Model in the Floodplain of River Swat, District Charsadda, Pakistan. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 8, 159-175. doi: 10.4236/gep.2020.85010.