Flood hazard assessment of the Kashmir Valley using historical hydrology

Abstract

Studies aimed at reconstructing the chronology of historical floods in a region assume an important role in flood hazard assessment, especially for flood prone regions like the Kashmir Valley. This is usually done through the review of historical documents and/or palaeohydrological studies; the latter allows access far beyond historical records. While as, archival scribes offer particularly valuable insights into attributes of hydrological extremes in the recent past. The Kashmir Valley has contours of its own in the field of historical hydrology, hitherto scattered across multiple textual scribes, making them obscure. Nevertheless, information collated and analysed made these contours visible in a specific way. The critical evaluation of historical flood records revealed that the Kashmir Valley was beleaguered with a series of catastrophic inundations. In addition, calibration of historical records against instrumental data spanning for ~1400 years were linked to quantifiable attributes to simulate their discharge, water surface elevation, and spatial extent using the Hydrologic Engineering Center's (HEC) River Analysis System (RAS) program. The deliverables of this study are expected to be valuable for flood hazard mitigation in the Kashmir Valley and for further research in this direction.