Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management

In recent years, the frequency of floods has escalated due to global warming and human activities. Addressing this challenge, our study investigates how future climate change scenarios will affect flood susceptibility in the Tajan watershed, northern Iran. The primary objective is to quantify and map the evolving risk of flooding in this region under different future climate scenarios. We applied machine learning techniques, coupled model intercomparison project phase 6 (CMIP6) climatic models, and remote sensing to achieve this goal. The CanESM5 climate model was chosen for its accuracy among four global climate models in CMIP6 to estimate future precipitation trends under shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) over two-time horizons: future (2020–2060) and far future (2061–2100). These scenarios encompass various influential factors, such as greenhouse gas emissions, urbanization, deforestation, and socioeconomic development, which played crucial roles in modulating flood susceptibility. Flood susceptibility maps were generated considering future precipitation patterns and scenarios using random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms, 432 flood locations, and 15 flood influencing factors. The accuracy of our prediction was validated through multiple statistical measures, including the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC-ROC) curve. The results indicated that the proposed models performed well, with the RF model ($\mathrm{AUC}=0.91$) demonstrating higher accuracy compared to the SVM model ($\mathrm{AUC}=0.85$). From a spatial perspective, increased future precipitation under all SSP scenarios enhances the likelihood of flood occurrences in the central and downstream regions. In the far future, intensified precipitation due to changes in regional topography and climate, coupled with higher greenhouse gas concentrations, is expected to heighten flood risks, especially at higher altitudes. We hope that our study findings will inform effective flood risk management strategies and adaptation plans in response to climate-induced flood risks, both in our study area and in similar regions globally.

Marginalized communities disproportionately experience the impacts of climate change, including more intense flooding and longer recovery times from disasters. Youth, particularly those belonging to marginalized communities, are consistently underrepresented in infrastructure planning decisions despite being the group most impacted by the long time scales of climate change, water management, and community infrastructure decisions. This paper investigates the novel perspectives that youth bring to planning processes and resulting impacts on recommendations for green stormwater infrastructure solutions to address flooding and community-scale factors important to achieving disaster resilience. Particular attention is paid to the infrastructure benefits prioritized by youth and characteristics of selected locations for infrastructure solutions. Further, the capabilities possessed by youth to effectively advocate for specific community infrastructure changes are not well researched, and the education and resources required to transform youth advocacy into action are not well understood. Through mixed methods, including quantitative and qualitative data and analysis, this paper explores the impact of youth education on building advocacy and the ability to create implementable stormwater infrastructure designs. The research is based on the development and implementation of a new interdisciplinary program called Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters (YARDs). Funded by the National Science Foundation, the YARDs program teaches youth about natural disasters, resilience, data communication, green infrastructure, and presentation skills. The curriculum was developed by interdisciplinary researcher teams, combining civil engineering, sociology, urban planning, digital media, and education research. The program was piloted as a weeklong summer program for middle school students, and later implemented as a semester-long program. Both implementations focused on students developing green infrastructure recommendations that address flooding and other student-identified risks to communicate to community decision makers. The methods are readily transferable to other potential youth programs in areas impacted by flooding with expansion to additional communities facing different combinations of disasters.