Exploring the dynamic impact of future land use changes on urban flood disasters: A case study in Zhengzhou City, China

Abstract

In recent years, urban floods have increased in frequency and severity due to intensified extreme rainfall events exacerbated by rapid urbanization. This study integrates a Markov-PLUS model and a rainfall-runoff-flood hydraulic numerical model to establish a scenario-based research framework for identifying interactions between land use dynamics and urban flood risk, using the Jialu River basin in Zhengzhou, China, as a case study. Future land use changes under three scenarios were forecast: Natural Development (ND), Economic Development (ED), and Ecological Protection (EP), alongside rainfall scenarios occurring every 10, 50, and 100 years. There were expansions and decreases in construction land under the ED and EP scenarios, respectively, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing ecological conservation. Economic scenarios showed the highest risks under the increased surface runoff and flood risk driven by higher rainstorm intensity. Over the next 15 years, the Economic Development scenario is projected to increase flood hazard areas, whereas the intensified Ecological Protection scenario is expected to reduce these risks. This underscores the contribution of prioritizing ecological conservation to mitigating disaster risks, calling for enhanced drainage systems and elevated flood protection standards to promote resilient urban development in the face of increasingly severe urban flood challenges.

Keywords

Urban flooding / Land use / Rainstorm / Scenario simulation / Zhengzhou / China

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yuanyuan Bai: Writing - original draft, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Shao Sun: Writing - review & editing, Data curation. Yingjun Xu: Writing - review & editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Yi Zhao: Writing - review & editing. Yujie Pan: Writing - review & editing. Yao Xiao: Methodology, Investigation. Ruoxin Li: Investigation.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (Grants No. 2022YFC3004404 and 2023YFF1305303). We also thank Prof. Guangfa Lin from Fujian Normal University for the early discussions and inspiration, Prof. Dongfeng Li from Peking University for critical edits on the earlier manuscript versions, and Prof. Jidong Wu from Beijing Normal University for supporting this research.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2025.100287.

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