Assessment of Urban Vulnerability using GIS based Fuzzy MCDA in the Metropolitan Region of Chao Phraya River Delta, Thailand.

Abstract

The United Nation’s World Cities Report 2020 shows that the global urban population has increased from about 28 percent to 56 percent in-between 1950 to 2020. More than half of the cities worldwide having a population above 1 million are located on coastal plains or deltas and are home to 60 percent of the global urban population. The major issue of urban management is urban vulnerability. To improve the quality of urbanization and sustainable development, assessment of urban vulnerability has a great significance. This study investigates the urban vulnerability assessment in the megacity (population >10 million) of Chao Phraya River Delta, Bangkok, Thailand. Due to the complexity of cities and vulnerability concepts, the present research focuses on different aspects of urban vulnerability. A total of fifteen vulnerability criteria are identified according to the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Finally, the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) technique is applied to generate vulnerability map of different risk conditions. The sensitivity analysis is applied to strengthen the obtained results. The study reveal that about 25-30 percent people of the megacity are living in the area of high vulnerability zone of the lower Chao Phraya river delta. The overall result reveals that essential remedial measures should be taken in the high vulnerable zones to achieve urban sustainability.