Rainfall-driven machine learning models for accurate flood inundation mapping in Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Urban pluvial flooding (UPF) has emerged as a serious natural hazard, especially in recent years. Previous research on UPF prediction has mainly focused on hydrological models, which required a large amount of data. However, a data-driven method can significantly reduce the computational cost by using rainfall amounts to predict pluvial flooding. Intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves using the Gumbel method can provide a better interpretation of the correlation between rainfall intensity, duration, and probability of occurrence of a given rainfall amount. In this study, machine learning models (ML) for rainfall amounts were used to identify flood points in a case study conducted in Karachi, Pakistan. Thirteen inundation factors were used for the ML models, including a new factor, curve number. Ten ML models were applied first on training and then on validation data, yielding the inundation points. The training and validation process of the model included 384 flood points. Several statistics were used to verify the performance and accuracy of the model. We found that the Light Gradient Boost Machine and Random Forest Classifier models were the most accurate in training and validating the model, while the Decision Tree and K-Nearest Neighbor models were the least accurate in training and validating the model. The study provides valuable information for decision makers to protect communities from flood hazards by incorporating the likely intensity and duration of rainfall events and carefully selecting influencing factors into flood event prediction models.