Mapping flood and flooding potential indices: a methodological approach to identifying areas susceptible to flood and flooding risk. Case study: the Prahova catchment (Romania)

Abstract

Given that floods continue to cause yearly significant worldwide human and material damages, flood risk mitigation is a key issue and a permanent challenge in developing policies and strategies at various spatial scales. Therefore, a basic phase is elaborating hazard and flood risk maps, documents which are an essential support for flood risk management. The aim of this paper is to develop an approach that allows for the identification of flash-flood and flood-prone susceptible areas based on computing and mapping of two indices: FFPI (Flash-Flood Potential Index) and FPI (Flooding Potential Index). These indices are obtained by integrating in a GIS environment several geographical variables which control runoff (in the case of the FFPI) and favour flooding (in the case of the FPI). The methodology was applied in the upper (mountainous) and middle (hilly) catchment of the Prahova River, a densely populated and socioeconomically well-developed area which has been affected repeatedly by water-related hazards over the past decades. The resulting maps showing the spatialization of the FFPI and FPI allow for the identification of areas with high susceptibility to flash-floods and flooding. This approach can provide useful mapped information, especially for areas (generally large) where there are no flood/hazard risk maps. Moreover, the FFPI and FPI maps can constitute a preliminary step for flood risk and vulnerability assessment.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

flash-flood / flooding / Flash-flood/Flooding Potential Index / Prahova River catchment / Romania

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Acknowledgement

Authors would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which greatly improved the manuscript. We are also very grateful to Catherine Wilcow for thorough English proofreading.

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2017 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg