Assessing future flood vulnerabilities in lower vellar basin: a remote sensing approach for sustainable flood management

Climate change expected to increase flood frequency, intensify impact, expand affected areas. This study focuses on addressing the growing flood risk in the Lower Vellar basin, which has experienced frequent flooding in recent years. The 2015 flood in Vellar basin was one of the worst floods in its history. By utilizing projected climate data, a flood map for future years was developed to predict flood-prone areas. Ten influential factors, including Elevation, Slope, Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), Precipitation, Land Use and Land Cover (LULC), Distance from River, Soil Type, Drainage Density, Distance from Road, and Stream Power Index (SPI), were considered for the current research. Weights for influential factors were assigned using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. In 2030, the high flood risk area constitutes 10.35% of the total, which escalates significantly to 17.5% in 2040, and further increases to 18.4% by 2050, emphasizing the growing vulnerability to flooding over the decades. The flood risk map aids policymaking for flood mitigation and enhances community resilience, supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities, and 13: Climate Action. Graphical Abstract: (Figure presented.) © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.