Flood susceptibility mapping in Erythropotamos river basin with the aid of Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Erythropotamos is a tributary of river Evros and during the last decade its drainage basin flooded many times, causing extensive damage on properties. In order to assess flood susceptibility in the aforementioned study area, the inundated areas of floods that occurred in 2010, 2017 and 2018 were initially delineated with the aid of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) imagery by applying an established flood delineation methodology. Subsequently, flood susceptibility mapping was conducted for the study area by applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Topographical, hydrological and meteorological factors were used and each one of them was classified into three (3) flood susceptibility categories (low, medium and high). The determination of the importance for each factor over the others, which is the main objective of this research, was decided according to the proportion of the 2010 inundated area, captured by ENVISAT/ASAR imagery, which intersected with each factor’s high susceptibility class. Finally, the resulting flood susceptibility map was validated according with the inundated areas of the 2017 and 2018 flood events, captured by SENTINEL – 1 A/B imagery, indicating that approximately 60% of both of these areas intersected with the map’s high susceptibility zone.