Urban Flood Susceptibility Mapping of Kochi Taluk Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Urban flooding is a rising global issue which can cause significant environmental, social, economic and human losses. The primary reason for the occurrence of floods in Indian cities is high intensity rainfall. There are several other factors which play a vital role in the occurrence of urban floods like elevation, slope, land use/ land cover (LULC), etc. This project aims to identify the geospatial factors that are associated with urban flooding and produce an urban flood susceptibility map for Kochi taluk using remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS). The susceptibility mapping and its analysis was done from remotely sensed images with the help of GIS-based multi criteria decision making (MCDM) approach. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique in integration with Geographical Information System (GIS) and Weighted Overlay Analysis had been incorporated to classify the land for urban flood susceptibility. The percentage area of highly susceptible land in Kochi increased from 24.10 % to 58.91 % for the years 2008 and 2018