Abstract
Flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall in a short period of time is one of the worst environmental hazards, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Watershed prioritisation identifies and ranks the different watersheds in a catchment based on multiple parameters, which play a role in the land and water degradation. This article deals with the prioritization of 24 sub-catchments in the Jarahi-Zohre catchment in southwest Iran by applying the mixed multivariate linear model of TOPSIS. Morphometric parameters, such as the constant of channel maintenance, drainage density, ruggedness number, infiltration index, stream power index, stream frequency, slope, drainage texture rate, relief rate, form factor, bifurcation ratio, as well as the topographic wetness index, were used as TOPSIS input data, along with precipitation information. The results obtained from the weighting analysis show that ruggedness number, slope and rainfall information have the largest impact on flood events. The sub-catchments Seidyon, Emamzadeh Jafar, and Takht Deraza have a high flood risk and should be given the highest priority for soil and water conservation measures. To validate the results, the prioritization scheme was compared to the flood events in recent years.
Highlights
Flood hazard is a type of natural disaster that affects the lives of many human being (Guzzetti et al 2005; Penning-Rowsell et al 2005; Salvati et al 2010)
For this study we derived a set of topographic indices (Table 1) that included: Bifurcation ratio (Rb), Drainage density (Dd), Constant of channel maintenance (C), Stream frequency (Fs), Form factor (Ff), Drainage texture (T), Ruggedness number (Rn), Relief ratio (Rh), Average slope (Sm), Topographic Wetness
Morphometric parameters were used as input parameters for the TOPSIS approach in order to derive a proper prioritization of the watershed to identify the spatial hotspots of flood risk of each sub-catchments in our case study in the southwest of
Summary
Flood hazard is a type of natural disaster that affects the lives of many human being (Guzzetti et al 2005; Penning-Rowsell et al 2005; Salvati et al 2010). It is one of the natural disasters that recently affect many areas especially with arid and semi climate around the world. Floods are regarded as the most terrible climatic disaster in the world in terms of loss of life and property damages. Floods are basically extreme hydrological events due to heavy precipitation. Flood events are often more severe in developing countries and they are the most severe limitation for sustainable development
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
