DEM-Based Approaches for the Delineation of Flood-Prone Areas in an Ungauged Basin in Africa
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 21, Issue 2
Abstract
In the present work, the flood hazard exposure in an ungauged basin in Africa is assessed exploiting the basin morphological characteristics. Flood-prone areas are identified using linear binary classifiers based on several geomorphic descriptors extracted from digital elevation models (DEMs). The classifiers are calibrated individually and evaluated by comparing their outputs with a flood inundation map obtained by two-dimensional (2D) hydraulic simulations and using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves as performance measures. The best-performing descriptors for the subcatchment of the Bulbula River, near the city of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), are the elevation difference, between the location under exam and the nearest drainage network, and the composite index , that compares an estimate of the water level in the nearest point of the river network to the difference in elevation between the point under exam and the river. These simple procedures allow extending the flood delineation derived with the hydraulic model over the entire river basin. The study highlights the potential for the detection of flood-prone areas over ungauged basins and large areas.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The present study is carried out in the framework of a European project named Climate Change and Urban Vulnerability in Africa (CLUVA) with the aim of providing an innovative procedure for the delineation of the flood maps in ungauged river basins in Africa and within the framework of activities of the Consorzio Interuniversitario per l'Idrologia (CINID) under the research agreement with the Civil Protection of the Basilicata Region.
References
Bates, P. D. (2004). “Remote sensing and flood inundation modelling.” Hydrol. Processes, 18(13), 2593–2597.
Bates, P. D., Horritt, M. S., and Fewtrell, T. J. (2010). “A simple inertial formulation of the shallow water equations for efficient two-dimensional flood inundation modelling.” J. Hydrol., 387(1), 33–45.
Cobby, D. M., Mason, D. C., Horritt, M. S., and Bates, P. D. (2003). “Two-dimensional hydraulic flood modelling using a finite-element mesh decomposed according to vegetation and topographic features derived from airborne scanning laser altimetry.” Hydrol. Processes, 17(10), 1979–2000.
Degiorgis, M., Gnecco, G., Gorni, S., Roth, G., Sanguineti, M., and Taramasso, A. C. (2012). “Classifiers for the detection of flood-prone areas using remote sensed elevation data.” J. Hydrol., 470, 302–315.
Degiorgis, M., Gnecco, G., Gorni, S., Roth, G., Sanguineti, M., and Taramasso, A. C. (2013). “Flood hazard assessment via threshold binary classifiers: Case study of the Tanaro river basin.” Irrig. Drain., 62(S2), 1–10.
De Risi, R., et al. (2013). “Flood risk assessment for informal settlements.” Nat. Hazards, 69(1), 1003–1032.
Di Baldassarre, G., Viglione, A., Carr, G., Kuil, L., Salinas, J. L., and Blöschl, G. (2013). “Socio-hydrology: Conceptualising human-flood interactions.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 17(8), 3295–3303.
Dilley, M. (2005). Natural disaster hotspots: A global risk analysis, Vol. 5, World Bank Publications, Washington, DC.
Ervine, D. A., and MacCleod, A. B. (1999). “Modelling a river channel with distant floodbanks.” Proc., ICE-Water Maritime Energy, 136 (1), 21–33.
Falorni, G., Teles, V., Vivoni, E. R., Bras, R. L., and Amaratunga, K. S. (2005). “Analysis and characterization of the vertical accuracy of digital elevation models from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.” J. Geophys. Res.: Earth Surf., 110(F2), 2003–2012.
Fawcett, T. (2006). “An introduction to ROC analysis.” Pattern Recognit. Lett., 27(8), 861–874.
FLO-2D [Computer software]. Nutrioso, Arizona, FLO-2D Software.
Gallant, J. C., and Dowling, T. I. (2003). “A multiresolution index of valley bottom flatness for mapping depositional areas.” Water Resour. Res., 39(12), n/a.
Giannoni, F., Roth, G., and Rudari, R. (2005). “A procedure for drainage network identification from geomorphology and its application to the prediction of the hydrologic response.” Adv. Water Resour., 28(6), 567–581.
Gong, L., Halldin, S., and Xu, C. Y. (2011). “Global-scale river routing—An efficient time-delay algorithm based on HydroSHEDS high-resolution hydrography.” Hydrol. Processes, 25(7), 1114–1128.
Grimaldi, S., Petroselli, A., and Nardi, F. (2012). “A parsimonious geomorphological unit hydrograph for rainfall-runoff modelling in small ungauged basins.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 57(1), 73–83.
Grimaldi, S., Petroselli, A., and Romano, N. (2013). “Green-Ampt curve-number mixed procedure as an empirical tool for rainfall-runoff modelling in small and ungauged basins.” Hydrol. Processes, 27(8), 1253–1264.
Hjerdt, K. N., McDonnell, J. J., Seibert, J., and Rodhe, A. (2004). “A new topographic index to quantify downslope controls on local drainage.” Water Resour. Res., 40(5), W05602.
Jalayer, F., et al. (2014). “Probabilistic GIS-based method for delineation of urban flooding risk hotspots.” Nat. Hazards, 73(2), 975–1001.
Jones, J. L., Fulford, J. M., and Voss, F. D. (2002). “Near real-time simulation and internet-based delivery of forecast-flood inundation maps using two-dimensional hydraulic modeling: A pilot study of the Snoqualmie River, Wash.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Tacoma, WA.
Kirkby, M. J. (1975). “Hydrograph modelling strategies.” Processes in physical and human geography, R. Peel, R. Chisholm, and P. Haggett, eds., Heinemann, Oxford, 69–90.
Lehner, B., Verdin, K., and Jarvis, A. (2006). “HydroSHEDS technical documentation, version 1.0.” World Wildlife Fund US, Washington, DC, 1–27.
Manfreda, S., et al. (2014a). “Investigation on the use of geomorphic approaches for the delineation of flood prone areas.” J. Hydrol., 517, 863–876.
Manfreda, S., et al. (2015). “Flood-prone areas assessment using linear binary classifiers based on flood maps obtained from 1D and 2D hydraulic models.” Nat. Hazards, 1–20.
Manfreda, S., Di Leo, M., and Sole, A. (2011). “Detection of flood prone areas using digital elevation models.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 781–790.
Manfreda, S., Samela, C., Sole, A., and Fiorentino, M. (2014b). “Flood-prone areas assessment using linear binary classifiers based on morphological indices.” Vulnerability, uncertainty, and risk quantification, mitigation, and management, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Milly, P. C. D., Wetherald, R. T., Dunne, K. A., and Delworth, T. L. (2002). “Increasing risk of great floods in a changing climate.” Nature, 415(6871), 514–517.
Nardi, F., Vivoni, E. R., and Grimaldi, S. (2006). “Investigating a floodplain scaling relation using a hydrogeomorphic delineation method.” Water Resour. Res., 42(9), W09409.
NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service). (1997). “Ponds—Planning, design, construction.”, U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, DC.
O’Brien, J. S., Julien, P. Y., and Fullerton, W. T. (1993). “Two-dimensional water flood and mudflow simulation.” J Hydraul Eng., 244–261.
Rodriguez, E., Morris, C. S., and Belz, J. E. (2006). “A global assessment of the SRTM performance.” Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens., 72(3), 249–260.
Rodríguez-Iturbe, I., and Rinaldo, A. (1997). Fractal river networks: Chance and self-organization, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Samuels, P. G. (1990). “Cross section location in one-dimensional models.” Int. Conf. on River Flood Hydraulics, W. R. White, ed., Wiley, Chichester, U.K., 339–350.
Schwanghart, W., and Kuhn, N. J. (2010). “TopoToolbox: A set of Matlab functions for topographic analysis.” Environ. Modell. Software, 25(6), 770–781.
Thomas, T. G., and Williams, J. J. R. (1995). “Large eddy simulation of turbulent flow in an asymmetric compound open channel.” J. Hydraul. Res., 33(1), 27–41.
Tonye, E., et al. (2012). “Report on climate related hazards in the selected cities.”, 〈http://www.cluva.eu/deliverables/CLUVA_D5.2.pdf〉.
Williams, W. A., Jensen, M. E., Winne, J. C., and Redmond, R. L. (2000). “An automated technique for delineating and characterizing valley-bottom settings.” Environ. Monit. Assess., 64(1), 105–114.
Yan, K., Tarpanelli, A., Balint, G., Moramarco, T., and Baldassarre, G. D. (2014). “Exploring the potential of SRTM topography and radar altimetry to support flood propagation modeling: Danube case study.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 20(2), 04014048.
Younis, B. A. (1996). “Progress in turbulence modelling for open channel flows.” Floodplain processes, M. G. Anderson, D. E. Walling, and P. D. Bates, eds., Wiley, Chichester, U.K., 299–332.
Ziegler, A. D., She, L. H., Tantasarin, C., Jachowski, N. R., and Wasson, R. (2012). “Floods, false hope, and the future.” Hydrol. Processes, 26(11), 1748–1750.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 21 • Issue 2 • February 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 18, 2014
Accepted: May 28, 2015
Published online: Jul 21, 2015
Discussion open until: Dec 21, 2015
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.