ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Flood Susceptibility Assessment Using Frequency
Ratio Modelling Approach in Northern Sindh
and Southern Punjab, Pakistan
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1
Department of Environmental Science, International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan
2
Department of Environmental Science, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan
3
Department of Environmental Sciences, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi
Submission date: 2021-09-17
Final revision date: 2021-12-18
Acceptance date: 2022-01-07
Online publication date: 2022-04-07
Publication date: 2022-06-20
Corresponding author
Asma Majeed
Department of Environmental science, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Faculty of Agriculture & Environment, 0092, Bahawalpur, Pakistan
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2022;31(4):3249-3261
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ABSTRACT
Flooding is among the most catastrophic and common natural events. It not only endangers human
lives, their livelihoods, and possessions but also devastates the nation’s economy. Increased flooding
is an inevitable consequence of climate change. Hence, Identification of flood suspectable hotspots is
vital for flood risk management along with disaster handling. The primary objective of this research
is to use a frequency ratio model to classify flood-prone zones in two provinces of Pakistan. The flood
inventory map was developed using 230 flood location points in Northern Sindh and Southern Punjab.
Aspect, profile curvature, elevation, slope, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized
difference soil index (NDSI), distance from the road, distance from the river, land use/land cover
(LULC) and rainfall were among the ten (10) determining factors. The data were randomly divided
into two distinct datasets, with 70% flood points (161) used for inventory formulation and the other 30%
(69 flood points) for result validation. The flood vulnerability map was categorized into five different
zones ranging from very low (19.73%) to very high (20.37%) susceptibility range. The area under the
receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and area under curve (AUC) was used to demonstrate
the prediction result that yielded a reasonable score of 77.4%. The study suggested that in comparison
to other studied districts, Jacobabad is the most prone region with acute vulnerability and constrained
resilience. The presented data can serve as a source for tracking, assessing, and predicting potential
flood activity in the area and could be beneficial for planners and decision-makers involved in early
disaster response planning within the country.