GIS Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Flood Vulnerability Index Assessment

Abstract

Over the past few years, Malaysia suffers severe flooding, especially in the States of Kelantan, Pahang and Kedah. One of the most important part of flood risk management is to evaluate the vulnerability to floods. This paper is intended to highlight the potential integrated of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to develop Flood Vulnerability Index (FVI) map. For this study, four different vulnerability components, i.e. social, economic, infrastructure and physical were considered. The criteria for each of components were determined based on expert opinions and literature review. For this study only Rank Sum and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) techniques in MCDM were used. Based on these MCDM techniques, FVI models were developed and FVI maps were generated. Findings have shown that the most vulnerable areas are mainly located along the rivers and Kota Setar was found to be the most vulnerable district within the study area. Slight differences in terms of the vulnerable area ranking can be observed when different MCDM techniques were used. Identifying areas with high flood vulnerability may guide the decision makers and planners towards a better way of dealing with floods by societies.