Flood Susceptibility Assessment of Lagos State, Nigeria using Geographical Information System (GIS)-based Frequency Ratio Model

Abstract

Flood is a common disaster affecting the lives and properties of humans. It has a history of causing great damage to infrastructure; disrupt transportation, also, a greater degree of flooding can lead to caving in of the earth causing landslides. Oftentimes, Lagos state, the economic capital of Nigeria has been subjected to flooding owing to heavy rainfall coupled with other causative factors. This study aims to prepare a flood susceptibility map of Lagos state using the frequency ratio model and Geographic Information System (GIS). In this paper, we have considered ten salient contributing factors to flooding, they are; slope, curvature, drainage proximity, drainage density, soil type, average annual rainfall, topographic wetness index, land use & land cover, normalized difference vegetation index, and elevation to delineate the area susceptible to flooding. The flood inventory map was prepared from 100 flood points identified from news reports, and Google Earth Imagery and was further divided into 70 for training and 30 for testing the model. The result shows that 12.54% and 11.62% of the total area of Lagos state have very high and very low levels of flood susceptibility, respectively. The Area Under the Curve has been used to validate the model and was found to perform satisfactorily with a success rate of 64% and a prediction rate of 61%. This work is a necessary input for mitigating flood hazards in the state and will serve a good purpose in making decisions for city planners and the government.