Assessing flood susceptibility in the Godavari River Basin, Bhadrachalam Region, Sothern India: A GIS-AHP Multi-Criteria Approach

Abstract

Floods, as recurrent natural disasters, exert significant impacts on both the environment and human settlements. This study focuses on evaluating the flood susceptibility of the Bhadradri Kothagudem district in Telangana, situated within the Godavari River Basin. The research integrates Geographic Information System (GIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in a multi-criteria approach to analyze and map flood susceptibility. Landsat-8 data, digital elevation model data and rainfall serve as inputs for assessing the flood susceptibility. The study considers various topographical features such as elevation, slope, roughness, contours and aspect, along with factors like land use land cover, flow accumulation, stream direction, stream network, drainage density, flow length, distance from the river, soil, normalized difference vegetation index and topographic wetness index. These variables are rescaled on a scale of one to five and combined to generate a comprehensive flood susceptibility map of the Kothagudem district using GIS. The AHP is implemented through GIS, assigning weightages on a scale of one to five based on the priority of spatial classes within thematic maps. The flood susceptibility map is produced on a scale of five, designating scale class five as of very high susceptibility and scale class one as low. Scale classes two, three and four represent intermediate levels of susceptibility. The resulting flood susceptibility maps offer valuable insights for disaster preparedness, risk mitigation and land-use planning in the Kothagudem district. The integration of GIS and AHP provides a robust methodology for assessing and visualizing flood susceptibility, enabling informed decision-making for resilient and sustainable development in flood-prone regions.