A geospatial analysis of flood risk zones in Cyprus: insights from statistical and multi-criteria decision analysis methods

Abstract

Over the past few decades, flood disasters have emerged as the predominant natural hazard in Cyprus, primarily driven by the escalating influence of climate change in the Mediterranean region. In view of this, the objective of this study is to develop a geospatial flood risk map for the island of Cyprus by considering 14 flood hazard factors and five flood vulnerability factors, utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) and remotely sensed datasets. A comparative assessment was conducted for hazard mapping, employing statistical methods of frequency ratio (FR) and FR Shannon’s entropy (FR-SE), and multi-criteria decision analysis method of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP). The main findings indicated that the FR method exhibited the highest predictive capability, establishing it as the most suitable approach for flood hazard mapping. Additionally, vulnerability factors were aggregated using F-AHP to generate the vulnerability map. The resulting flood risk map, which is the product of flood hazard and flood vulnerability, revealed that 9% of the island was located within highly risky regions, while 13.2% was classified as moderate risk zones. Spatial analysis of these high-risk areas indicated their concentration in the primary city districts of the island. Therefore, to mitigate future risks within these cities, an analysis of potential expansion zones was conducted, identifying the best-suited zone exhibiting the lowest risk. The generated flood risk map can serve as a valuable resource for decision-makers on the island, facilitating the integration of flood risk analysis into urban management plans.