Data integration for flood risk analysis by using GIS/RS as tools
Land Use Map
Fig. 3 shows different land uses in the study area. It reveals that predominantly residential areas are situated at the riverbank. The map also shows that there is severe lack of land use planning. As in the lower plate, which are the high-class residential area of the Muzaffarabad city, and it is located just at the bank Neelum River. Red fort, which is the cultural heritage of the Muzaffarabad is located just on the Neelum riverbank and was severally damaged by the flood of 1992. In Makri village, the people construct their mud houses there because the land is cheap. Also most of the cantonment area is located just on the riverbank. At Domel the confluence of River Neelum and Jhelum there is high class commercial area like Five Star Hotels are located just on the river bank that are vulnerable to flooding. Some Government offices like the WAPDA (Electricity Department), Officer Club, National Bank are located at the Neelum River bank are also vulnerable to flooding. Critical Facilities Critical facilities like Hospitals, Schools, Colleges, Important offices etc can play very important role during any natural hazard. All such facilities are also needed to be taking care hence these are very expensive places and also in some cases it needs utmost protection for example National Bank, Revenue office have very important and sensitive data. In case of damaging these documents, it can create very serious problems to the civil administration. So it is necessary that such critical facilities should be demarcated on the map separately. Similarly play grounds parks & open spaces even schools and colleges can provide temporary shelter to the stricken families from any natural hazards. But during the selection of such areas it is important to have a proper road link so that in emergency peoples could shifted safely and quickly. In the city, one Hospital, School, College, Cantonment, Neelum Stadium, Income Tax office, National Bank and number of other places situated which can be used as a shelter places during flooding. The map has been drawn by applying the mask command from land use map (Fig. 4).  Fig. 3 (Left): Showing Land use map while Fig. 4 (Right) Critical Facilities Creation of Vulnerability Maps Office of United Nations Development Relief Organization (UNDRO), defines the term vulnerability as: “The degree of loss to a given element or set of elements at risk resulting from the occurrence of a natural phenomenon of a given magnitude. It is expressed on a scale from 0 (no damage) to 1 (total damage)”. Keeping in view the definition of vulnerability, some weight value has been aided to the attribute column like age, material, number of storey and vulnerability. For example those houses which were more old, with double or triple storey houses, with low quality material the dwellers use during the construction of the houses and which are more vulnerable to floods has been given low values like 1, 2 or 3 etc, likewise those houses which are newly constructed, preferably single storey, material which has been used of good quality and which are less vulnerable to flooding has been given high values (10, 9 or 8 etc) in these columns. The values that were given in the attribute columns were calculated with the help of the following formula entered on the main window of ILWIS software. The resultant map, which acquired as a result of this calculation, was a Classified Hazard map (Fig. 5). Hazard =Wlanduse+Wage+Wmaterial+Wvulnerbility+Wstoreys After the calculation based on the above mentioned formula, the researcher got the map which was only indicating the value by clicking on any parcels. Such kind of values makes no meanings for those people who don’t know about the methodology applied, so to make the result more acceptable, a separate domain has been created in which the resultant values were divided into three classes: very high, high, moderate and low hazard areas, for example;
 Fig. 5: Classified Hazard Map produced after Slicing with different domain |