Urban flooding risk assessment based on the impact of land cover spatiotemporal characteristics with hydrodynamic simulation

Abstract

In recent years, urban flooding has emerged as a major challenge, with land cover change identified as a key contributing factor. This study investigates the sensitivity of urban flooding risk to land cover changes. Seven urban land cover maps from different years and five different rainfall events, were selected as the examples. Based on hydrodynamic model simulations, this study analyzed the relationship between the total area of urban flooding and the proportion of ponding depths across various depth intervals and the land cover change. The study region was divided into 41 sub-areas based on road classifications and building clusters. The urban flood risk considering the aggregation of urban flooding, maximum ponding depth, the extent of the ponded area, and the average ponding depth was quantified within these sub-regions. Additionally, ten characteristic points were extracted from two sub-area with significant risk changes to analyze the logic of urban flooding risk evolution under land use change. The results indicate that: (1) There is a positive correlation between the total area of urban flooding and the proportion of high ponding depths and increasing impervious surfaces. (2) Urbanization significantly increases urban flooding risk, with 28 out of 41 areas experiencing heightened risk, including 6 sub-areas with risk increases exceeding 100%. (3) When the rainfall event changes from a 20-year to a 100-year return period, the maximum ponding depth in cropland stabilizes compared to impervious surfaces. Conversion of cropland to impervious surfaces accelerates increases in ponding depth and can lead to higher maximum ponding depths.