Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

One of the most important steps to prevent and deal with the destructive effects of floods is to identify areas with the highest flood potential in the watershed and its sub-basins. In this research, an attempt was made to determine the regions with the highest capacity of runoff and flood production in Mazandaran Province basin using the hierarchical analysis process (AHP) model. On this basis, six factors including heights, slope, land use, geology, flow accumulation, and rainfall were used. After calculating the final weight of each input factor using the hierarchical process model in ArcGIS (V. 10.5) software, a combination of input layers was used to construct a flooding map of the study area in five different categories including very high, high , Medium, low, and very little. Results showed that 38.79% of the Mazandaran Province, equivalent to the area of 9244.82 km2, has a high and very high flooding hazard. Moreover, almost half of this province, equivalent to the area of 12028.51 km2 has a moderate flooding hazard. The results reveal that flooding hazard at each hydrometric stations was in good agreement with the historical observations of floods, that most of them have the return periods of 50- and 100-year. It implies the high accuracy of the method and the weights assigned to each of the effective factors. This clarifies the usability of this research results for future preventive implementation.

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