Journal of Spatial Analysis

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Natural disasters is one of the main challenges for developing countries, which not only cause death and emotional pain and suffering of survivors, but greatly affecting development. Reduction programs and prevention of disasters, including policies that countries to increase community capacity in disaster, are followed to improve the effects of these disasters. One of the risks that affect Iran, is flooding. Iran has a very high risk of flooding, which in most years, about 70% of annual credit plan is paied to reduce the effects of natural disasters. Floods in recent years has left a lot of damage in many parts of Iran. Because the flood event and can not be prevented, but we can assess the resiliency and vulnerability of risks to reduce the effects of flooding greatly. Planning in disaster management process can reduce the risks of accidents and improve the resilience. Thus, how and by what means we can increase the capacity of society to accept a certain level of risk is very important. In recent years, many researches, focused over concept of resilience and disaster risk reduction policy. This research study area is the Nekarud basin in Mazandaran province. Population growth and unethical uses of Nekarud and natural resources, humans and their facilities, infrastructure and natural resources of the basin are vulnerable. The aim of this study was to evaluate the resiliency and identify strengths and weaknesses in the flood affected villages Nekarud margin is based on random sampling of villages (8 villages) have been affected by floods in recent years, were selected. The research method is descriptive and analytical study of its nature. The aforementioned villages to assess the resilience, the four dimensions of economic, social, and institutional infrastructure based on the location of the axis (DROP) provided by Cutter and his colleagues in 2008, was used. According to the surveys and the results obtained, it can be stated that the model DROP, because of the location-based (geographic), and the integrity of the elections aspects and indicators to measure and assess the resilience of settlements is a good model. The dimensions considered to measure resilience include: economic, social, institutional and infrastructure. After determining the dimensions required components and indicators research, scientific references were identified by the study, questionnaires were prepared. Secondly, the need of the rural sample in the form of a questionnaire, collected and analyzed after coding in SPSS. The findings of the study showed that the settlements are in a different situation in terms of resilience in different dimensions. The economic resilience for the total sample is 8.96. The amount of this variable for Zarandin-e Olya, Zarandin-e Sofla, Abelo and Kuhsarkadeh rural settlements is higher than the average whole.

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Among the various environmental hazards, flood is the greatest and most important climate crisis which takes every year the lives of thousands people and impose severe damages on human society and environment. Today, it is clear that controlling all hazards, including floods is not possible. Suitable management can only minimize the damages. The literature on natural disasters management indicated that in the process of natural disaster management and their vulnerability mitigation, there are two dominant paradigm: technic-based approach and community-based approach.

Community-based approach welcome the local cooperation and participation in disaster management process and calls for strengthening local capacity through the participation of all individuals and groups at the local level. This approach is not only appropriate to provide solutions for disaster reduction, but build disaster preparedness. Because disaster preparedness planning requires special attention to local participation. In the geographic area of Bashar River Basin, due to the lack of suitable agricultural land and greater quantity of water for rice crop, villages have been built at rivers edge. So that, most of the houses and farms in the villages are located very close to the river. However, these locations are extremely vulnerable to flooding. This study reviews the status of local participation and its impact on reducing flood risks. Also, this research focuses on factors influencing local community trends and choices in the participation rate.

This study is applied research in terms of purpose and uses descriptive-analytical method. According to the nature of the study, data were collected through fieldwork and library research methods using observation, interview, questionnaire and evaluation card techniques. To understand different characteristics of community, Likert scale and one-sample t-test were used and measurement scale for data was ordinal. Also. The method of selective experimental approach based on profit was taken to evaluate the level of different trends in Community's financial participation for reducing detrimental effects of flood. To recognize the community awareness and perception toward flood risk and the probability of its occurrence in the future, the willingness level to participation and to explore the effective factors on villager’s decisions and to utilize modern management techniques the selective experimental approach based on evaluation card and logit model were employed.

The results of statistical analysis showed that in the study area, 86.5% of the community have experienced the damages caused by flooding and forecasted the likelihood of heightened chance of flooding in the future. Finding showed that although the people use traditional methods for managing flood, but they tend to employ modern methods such as dam building for reducing flood risk. This help them to increase the safety factor for their locations and farm lands. In spite of the fact that the villagers expressed the higher safety factor for new management methods such as (dam building, river broadening and preventing the destruction of forest and environment), but it seems that improper functioning, adverse consequences (environmental and socio-economic) of projects implementation (dam building) as well as the inability of villager's financial participation (high cost of this kind of methods), are barriers to using them for lowering the flood risks and damages.

The review of the possible role of some intervening variables to predict local communities' participation in decision-making processes showed that low-income, old age of the samples with high average (47.61) and education with lower average (3.16) are the most important factors influencing community decision making. The results of binominal logit model showed that the proposed variables is significant at the 5% level. If the offer price increase, the chance of residents' acceptance of participation will decrease and vice versa.

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Hazard is potential source of harm or a situation to create a damage. So identification of zones exposed to hazards is necessary for planning or land use planning. But this situation becomes more critical when they appear at the population centers. So applying the principle of passive defense based on environmental capabilities is unarmed action that caused the reduction of human resources vulnerability, buildings, equipment, documents and arteries of the country against the crisis by natural factors such as drought, flood, earthquake, etc. Considering the possible occurrence of such risks in population centers, ready to deal with what is known unpleasant and undesirable consequences is necessary. On this basis and given the importance of population centers in Helle and Mond basins, in this study, the authors tried to analyze the Rain hazards of drought and flood.

The study area,Helle and Mond basins, with about 21,274, 47653 km² area, respectively are located in the south of Iran. The Helle basin approximately is between 28° 20'N and 30° 10'N latitudes and between 50° E and 52° 20'E longitudes and Mond basin is between 27° 20' and 29° 55' latitudes and between 51° 15' and 30° 27'E longitudes.These basins are located in sides of a massive sources of moisture, Persian Gulf.

In this study, data from 23meteorological and synoptic stationsstations, during aperiod of20 years (1992-2011)in northern region of the Persian Gulf (Mond and helle basins)were used to calculate Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The data were collected by the Iranian Meteorological data website (http://www.weather.ir). The SPI is primarily a tool for defining and monitoring drought events. This index may be computed with different time steps (e.g. 1 month, 3months, 24 months). The SPI is defined for each of the above time scales as the difference between monthly precipitation (xi) and the mean value ( ), divided by the standard deviation. To assess flood risk zones, the flood, annual evapotranspiration, cities and populations centers layers were collected in Helle and Mond basins position. The annual precipitations and the SPI maps were drawn by Geostatistics, Kriging. It also the flood and annual evapotranspiration layers were weighted by Euclidian distance method, separately. Finally, all layers are weighted by AHP and fuzzy-linear methods (descending and ascending linear function) into vulnerable layers. The final map of vulnerable areas with flood and drought high risk was drawn based on the algorithm of linear-Fuzzy in a raster format.

According to the results, eastern, north eastern and south eastern part of Mond basin had high annual precipitation. Based on this result, it said that these parts of study area were known the least dangerous areas of vulnerability. The results also showed that with passing of the western regions and going to the center of the study area the annual rainfall have been added over the years. Kazeron, Chenar Shahijan, Firouz Abad, Borm plains and some parts of Khane Zenyan and Dash Arzhan are cities located in this regions. Low latitude, Proximity to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, low annual precipitation and high temperature causing evaporation and inappropriate environmental conditions in Boushehr province and some coastal cities such as Genaveh, Deilam, Boushehr, Baghan, Lar and Khonj. Accordingly, west, north west, south and south west regions in Helle basin were located in extreme vulnerability zone with a loss of annual rainfall for drinking and agricultural production and poor nutrition underground aquifers.

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Accessibility to precise spatial and real time data plays a valuable role in the velocity and quality of flood relief operation and subsequently, scales the human and financial losses down. Flood real time data collection and processing, for instance, precise location and situation of flood victims may be a big challenge in Iran regarding the hardware facilities (such as high resolution aerial imagery devices) owned by the correspond organizations. To overcome the mentioned inabilities as well as reducing the financial costs for real time monitoring purpose of a flood, the current research intended to use the capacity of the flood victims and other volunteers to collect and upload real time data to rescue themselves. By means of this, flood real time spatial and non-spatial data collection is applicable via public and per-person participation based on the needs of each victims. The current Open Source workflow has been so designed that by using a browser like Mozilla, Explorer, Chrome and etc., and without the need for installing any software, the victim transmits his/her exact geographic location (captured automatically by the designed web service) and other multimedia data such as video-photo. Also, the flood-affected person announces the type of the damage and consequently, demanded rescue operation to the managers as a text information. After data processing on the server, the information is represented as a real time rescue map for decision making. The rescue plan may be mapped based on the singular aid as well as plural plan in the cluster form specialized for a particular group of victims in each bounding box. To design the web service, a client architecture for victims, other volunteers and managers has been developed, for implementing the service, Open Source technologies, server-side and client-side programming languages, Geoserver and WFS (Web Feature Service) standard adopted by OGC for spatially-enabled representation of victims demands, have been exploited. The research result is a browser-based service in which the client service offers automatic zooming to the current location of the clients and sends the rescue request including personal identifications and the type of injury using PHP (stands for Hypertext Preprocessor) and SQL (Structured Query Language). In the other side, on the client side designed for managers, the requested rescue submitted by the victims and other volunteers are mapped and displayed real time by OpenLayers and WFS. The result introduces an efficient applicable method for gathering real time and high accuracy geographic-multimedia-text data collection and consequently, extremely reduces the relief operation costs. Finally, the proposed methodology causes better performance and spatially clustering of victims to decrease the aftermath of the flood in a region like Iran suffers from the lack of expensive hardware technologies for precise data collection and transmission.

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Problem statement
The occurrence of terrible floods due to climate change has caused much damages in different parts of the world in recent decades, and the effect of these changes is more pronounced in dry areas. Floods are the most common environmental damage. On average, 60 floods occur annually in Iran, with an average annual flood loss of 141 people, meaning more than 2 deaths per year per flood event.
Research Methodology
The study area consists of six stations located in Hormozgan, Kerman, Yazd, Kohgiluyeh, and Fars provinces. In this study, two types of ground and high data are used as follows:
A) - Using daily rainfall data of the 44 years (1967-2014) statistical stations of the region obtained from the country's Meteorological Organization
B) Use of high-level data. Includes revised data for geopotential heights, sea level pressure, wind direction, meridian wind, omega, and humidity, from the National Center for Environmental Excellence at Colorado. To conduct synoptic analysis, the circular environmental method was used; after observing the daily rainfall during the statistical period of all rainfall over 50 mm in selected stations of Yazd, Jiroft, Shiraz, Bandar Abbas, and Yasuj, 118 heavy rainfall events were investigated. After identifying and separating days, 105 observation systems were identified and analyzed.
After the evaluation and control of the pressure maps of the sea of the systems of landing, 4 patterns were selected and identified.
Explain and interpret the results
The results showed that heavy precipitation occurred in the months of December, December, February, February, and November, respectively. Since November, with the retreat of high-performance dynamic systems to the southern latitudes and the influx of western winds from high latitudes on the area, conditions for the occurrence of heavy rainfall are provided. Most centers with 9 heavy rainwater systems of Sudan's lowland, 6 the moderate Sudanese-Mediterranean component of the Middle East has been on Iraq, and the four satellite systems have been the Mediterranean-Sudan-Mediterranean integration. The most frequent Sudanese pattern in 2-day continuity with 17 cases was Sudan-Mediterranean integration pattern with 7 cases in 3-day continuation, Sudanese-Mediterranean integration pattern in the Eastern Mediterranean, 4-day continuity with 7 events, and equidistant Mediterranean pattern The continuity of 2 to 4 days has been due to the increased load of Mediterranean systems ranging from 70 to 90 mm.
 

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Developing urbanization and changing hydrological conditions of natural streams increases the flooding risk. This study tries to do flood hazard zoning in the Ilam city and determine the critical area of the urban regions against flooding by using AHP method and GIS environment. For this purpose, the parameters of the curve number, height, distance from the river, geology, land use, population, slope, soil, building density, worn texture buildings and accumulated flow as effective parameters in flooding hazard in Ilam city selected and of these parameters weighted by using Expert Choice software. The result of the Expert Choice software is transferred to the environment of GIS software and flood hazard map of study area prepared. Results of the study and flood hazard map show that areas with very low-risk, low risk, intermediate-risk, high-risk and very high-risk form the 0.8%, 8.5%, 49.6%, 32.54% and 8.56% of the of Ilam city area, respectively. Also, the central area of the city has the highest risk and the probability of occurrence of the flood due to the high density of population and residential areas in this area and its proximity to the seasonal rivers and old part of the city. Therefore, by examining the results of Expert Choice software, it is possible to identify the most effective factors in the occurrence of flood risk and prioritize them to address management solutions to eliminate or mitigate the effects of these factors.

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Analysis and Measurement of Environmental Resilience of Villages in Gorganrud Watershed against Flood (Golestan province, Iran)
 
Abstract
Environmental hazards are inevitable phenomena that always place serious risks on the development of human societies, especially rural development. In the recent years, however, significant changes have been made in crisis management approaches, and the prevailing view has shifted from the "reduction of vulnerability" approach to "resilience improvement". Resilience is a new concept often used in the face of unknowns and uncertainties. Therefore, along with this change of attitude, it is important to examine and analyze natural hazards in terms of resilience. According to global statistics, floods, as one of the most devastating natural disasters, have caused the greatest losses and casualties to human settlements, which is true both in our country and in Golestan province. Investigations show that only in the statistical period of 1991-2014, 106 rainfall cases have led to the occurrence of floods in this province. These floods have damaged natural resources, the environment and the prevalence of environmental pollution; In addition, other natural and human factors have contributed to the heightened risk of flood damage. But if it was planned for the restoration of villages, then the damage could be reduced. Therefore, this research was conducted with the general purpose of determining the relationships between environmental factors and factors of rural communities of Gorganrud watershed on their resilience and numerical values. Finally, the residual spatial analysis of rural limited settlements was studied. Accordingly, the research questions are as follows: a) What is the relationship between environmental factors and factors in the villages of Gorganrud watershed in Golestan province with the resilience of the communities living in them in the face of flood? b) What are the resiliency values ​​of these communities in the environmental dimension and which zones? This is an applied research with descriptive-analytical method. A library of researcher-made questionnaires was used for collecting data using library resources. The statistical population consisted of 106 villages with 22,942 households. First, 31 villages were selected by cluster sampling. Then, using Cochran formula, 318 families were selected as sample size and selected by simple random sampling method. Also, for assessing the validity of the questionnaire, using Delphi collective wisdom methods, it was determined by using historical studies and opinions of experts in rural areas. The reliability of the questionnaires was also determined by using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient in the pre-test method. The value for the household questionnaire was r_a1=0.841 and r_a2=0.862, respectively. All steps for statistical analyzes have been performed by Excel and SPSS software. Additionally, the development of mapping, risk-taking, risk and resilience was also done with the help of ArcGIS software and the weight of each criterion was determined by the Super Decision tool; Then, using the weighted and linear overlapping methods, each of the sub-criteria of the main indexes was multiplied in its weights. The study area is divided into two distinct sections in terms of geological and geomorphological structure. The southern and eastern parts of it are the ripples of the eastern Alborz mountains, which are taller in the southern part and extend along the east-west direction. Also, the northern part of the studied basin is the Gorgan plain, in which the main branch of Gorganrud flows from east to west and all branches of the south and east are drained. Following the general slope of the main branch and its long-standing walls in the mid-east, it is usually not flooded; but as far as the west is concerned, its slope is very low and one of the flood plains is considered as the basin. The results of the research show that there is a significant relationship between the environmental factors of the studied basin villages and the resilience of the communities inhabited by them in the face of floods. Also, the average environmental resilience of the whole region was lower than the average (2.76 average), rural households in the sub-basins of TilAbad and ChehelChai with an average of 3.24 and 3 had relatively good environmental resilience, But most of the rural households in the sub-basins of Ghurechai and Lower of Gorganrud, Mohammad Abad-Zaringol, Madarsoo and Sarisoo, with an average of 2.89 to 1.85, had a poor environmental resilience. In addition, According to the flood risk resilience map, it can be said that of the total 31 sample villages studied, about 29 percent of sample villages have "medium upward" resilience in facing flood risks; conversely, most of these villages (71%) also have relatively low degree of resilience. Also, comparing the findings of this study with the results of most other researches, such as the studies of Olshansky and Kartes (1998) regarding the necessity of considering the environmental factors of settlements, observing the necessary environmental standards and the necessity of using proper land use management tools to reduce risk hazards and improve resilience, Center of Emergency Management Australia (2001) on the need to consider the state of the infrastructure, including the level of communications and accesses, biological conditions, including the status of pollution, as well as geographical characteristics, such as distances and proximity, climate, topography, as well as the general results of studies by Rafiean et al. (2012) in special selection of the most suitable model of resilience based on the combination of carter and socioeconomic model due to the simultaneous attention of this model to its geographical features and its comprehensiveness, as well as attention to the local communities' participation, Rezaei (2010), Shokri Firoozjah (2017) and Anabestani et al. (2017) Regarding the low value of the calculated population, the resiliency number of the society is consistent and consistent with the lack of attention to infrastructure issues, locations, etc., which is below the baseline (3). As a result, all of the aforementioned components of the resilience of inhabitants of sample societies have been affected by its environmental dimension, which is often due to insufficient attention and insufficient handling of them, which reduces resilience of rural residents to flood risks.
 
Keywords: Environmental hazards, Flood, Vulnerability, Resilience, Spatial analysis, Golestan Gorganrud basin.
 

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Simulation of floodplain zones in Tehran's metropolitan watershed (case study: Kaan basin)
Ezaatollah Ghanavati, Associate prof. Geographical science faculty, Kharzmi University
Ali Ahmmadabadi. Assistance prof. Geographical science faculty, Kharzmi University
Negar Gholami, MA in Geomorphology, Geographical science faculty, Kharzmi University
Extended abstract
Floodplains and adjacent rivers are always at risk from flood events due to their specific circumstances. Flood prone area identification in the watersheds is one of the basic solutions for destructive flood control and mitigation. Flood mapping is one of the best methods for flood prone area planning and identifying. Considering the importance of flood hazard, it is important to understand the role of uncertainty and incorporate that information in flood hazard maps. The hydrodynamic modeling approach is suitable for accounting various uncertainties, and thus lends itself to creating probabilistic floodplain maps. For  this purpose,  flow  boundary  conditions,  peak  instantaneous  discharge with  different  return  periods,  cross  sections and their distance and roughness coefficients for each cross section were entered to HEC-RAS hydraulic model in Kaan watershed  located  in  the Tehran  province,  Iran,  and  this model was  then  run  and  flood water surface profile at different return periods were estimated. In the Kaan Basin, most residential and agricultural lands are located in a very small distance from the river bed. The rapid growth of construction, human activities and land use change in the downstream of the basin have caused a change in the hydrological cycle and runoff production. Floodplain mapping using hydrodynamic models is difficult in data scarce regions. Additionally, using hydrodynamic models to map floodplain over large stream network can be computationally challenging. Some of these limitations of floodplain mapping using hydrodynamic modeling can be overcome by developing computationally efficient statistical methods to identify floodplains in large and ungauged watersheds using publicly.
The aim of this study is to determine flood areas within 20 kilometers of the Kaan River by using the HEC-RAS model and Arc GIS software to identify flood lands in different return periods.
The Kaan basin is located in the central Alborz Mountains. This basin is limited to south, north, east and the west respectively to Tehran, Jajrood Basin, Darakeh Basin and Karaj River Basin. The most important River in the area is the Kaan River and originated from high mountains.
Most commonly, the hydrodynamic modeling approach is used to create flood hazard maps corresponding to a rare high flood magnitude of 100-year return period or higher. Although this approach can provide very accurate floodplain maps, it is computationally demanding. As a result, the modeling approach to flood hazard mapping works well for individual streams, but its efficiency drops significantly when used to map floodplains over a large stream network. In this research, floodplain areas in the Kaan basin in return periods of 2 to 20 years are determined using the HEC-RAS model and the HEC-geoRAS extension. For this purpose, digital maps 1: 25000, DEM (10m), discharge values of Sulaghan Station, morphological characteristics of the river bed and cross sections have been used. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) play a critical role in flood inundation mapping by providing floodplain topography as input to hydrodynamic models, and then enabling the mapping of the floodplain by using the resulting water surface elevations. Finally, the data is entered into the HEC-RAS software and analyzed. After determining the flood ranges in the various return periods at each cross-section, enter the results to the Arc GIS software and the flood zoning maps were obtained.
In this research roughness coefficients (Maning^,s coefficients) for each cross section were obtain be the
n= (nb+n1+n2+n3+n4) m                                                             (Eq.1)
Geological map and field observations have shown that the main difference between the widths of the valley in the study area is related to the type of rock. The results of the hydrodynamic model show that in the river upstream, the increase in discharge had led to the water level increase and expansion in the floodplain surfaces. But in the middle and low slopes in the downstream of the river, due to the reduced discharge, the river has a larger lateral extension and the flood areas are larger than the upstream of the river. Also, for a longer period of return, the discharge rate and the water level increase and the flood plain was more extensive. The results show that in the downstream of the basin due to instability the bed, existence of wide and eroded chanels, high ability in sedimentation, erosion of the channel bed, and low impact of vegetation, this section They can be restored and regenerated and constantly changing. Due to the location the Tehran-North high way from the Kaan basin, had the construction of roads and structures, the flood plain areas of the river should be fully observed or retrofitted.
 
Key words: Environmental hazards, Flood, Flood areas, Kaan River, HEC-RAS
 
 
 
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The zoning of flood risk potential in the Ghotorchay watershed with ANP and WLC multi-criteria decision making methods
 
 
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Flood is one of the most complex and natural destructive phenomena that have many damage every year. The northwestern region of the country, due to its semi-arid and mountainous climate and thus of high rainfall variability, is one of the areas exposed to destructive floods. Flood risk zoning is an essential tool for flood risk management. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to determine the flood risk zones in the Ghotorchay watershed by using the analytical network process (ANP).
 
Methodology
In this research,, with geographic information system (GIS), satellite images, synoptic station data, analytical network process and the combination of layers, the flood potential of has been modeled in the Ghotorchay watershed. The final map of flood risk based on a combination of factors and climatic and physical elements including land use, geology, vegetation, topography, slope and land capability was prepared. The weight of each criterion was determined by ANP method and used by weighted linear composition (WLC) method for spatial modeling and incorporation of layers.
 
Results
The results of flood risk zoning showed that the Qal layers from geology, slopes of less than 3 precent, land capacity of units 5, 6 and 7, and as well as poor vegetation cover were identified as flood zones. The results obtained from the analytical network process model indicate the fact that part of the watershed is affected by the risk of flooding with the very high potential, which is mainly located in the downstream of watershed. For this reason, the streams of rank 3 and 4 are considered as flood zones and flood guide areas to the downstream areas. Also, river networks of 5 and higher ranks are in the range of floodplains or river coastal and usually have surface and extensive floods.
 
Conclusion
The flood prone areas and providing effective solutions for flood management is one of the main steps in reducing flood damage. Therefore more precise management and control of basins with multiple dams, embedding flood alert systems in flood plain areas and performing basic measures is one of the most urgent measures to prevent, improve and control this natural disaster.
Key words: Analytical network process, Biological protection, Floodplain, Flood risk assessment, Ghotorchay
 

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Zoning map Vulnerability of Flood Spreading areas
(Case study: Musian Flood spreading station in Ilam province)
 
 
 
Introduction
One of the flood plain hazards is a change in the pattern of surface flows due to natural factors or human activities. Changes in the stream pattern are the changes that occur due to the surface stream patterns in terms of the shape of the drains, drainage form and quantitative morphological indices of the basin. These changes ,by formation of flood, submersibility, erosion, longitudinal and transverse displacements of rivers and streams, environmental degradation, etc., have a great deal of risk and harm to residents of the land adjacent to the watersheds, including the demolition of residential buildings,  valuable agriculture lands, facilities, river structures, buildings and relation routes, etc. There are several watersheds in the Musian Plain Basin that regularly change the direction of surface streams and, while displacing large volumes of sediments of erosion-sensitive structures, degrades crops, rural dwellings, connection paths, facilities, Irrigation canals obstruction, water supply and a lot of financial and physical damage to the residents of the region. Therefore, in order to solve these problems, in 1997, the Dehloran flood spreading plan was carried out at a level of 5000 hectares from the Basin of Musian Plain. Although some of the changes in the dynamics of the region, such as stream pattern, flood control, supllying groundwater aquifers, etc., have been caused by the implementation of this plan, but the problem of the concentration of watersheds behind the embankments composed of sensitive formations ,and the release of these areas will have many financial and even physical losses. Therefore, with the implementation of this research, it is attempted to identify the domain and risks that threaten the lowlands and to identify the appropriate measures to prevent them from happening with the zoning and inspection of the vulnerable areas of the Musain Plain.
 
 
Methodology
This study was conducted in five stages to prepare a vulnerability map of the flood spreading area of ​​Mosian plain. First, the implementation phases of the flood distribution plan were separated. In the second stage, information layers of effective factors in changing the flow pattern and concentration of surface currents behind the flood spreading structures were prepared. These layers included elevation, slope, and direction classes, which were prepared based on the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) extracted from the 1: 50,000 topographic maps of the Armed Forces Geographical Organization, as well as the layers of geological formations and land use changes. The lands were prepared based on the maps of the Geological Survey of Iran and the processing of Landsat satellite images of eight OLI sensors in 2013, respectively, by the method of determining educational samples. In the third stage, each class of effective factors in changing the flow pattern (mentioned layers) was given a score based on the range of zero to 10. The basis of the scores of the classes of each factor was according to the number of classes and the average of the total classes of that factor. The fourth stage in the GIS environment was created by combining the weight layers created, the vulnerability layer of the study area (quantitative map of vulnerability areas) of the basin. Then, by analyzing the vulnerability layer (filtering), the pixels and small units were removed or merged into larger units. The last (fifth) step was to classify the quantitative layer and then extract the qualitative map of the vulnerability zoning according to the range of scores based on the five very low, low, medium, severe and very severe classes. A summary of the research steps is shown in the form of a diagram.
 
Results and Discussion
The results showed that the most important threat and danger factor is the concentration of waterways behind erosion-sensitive embankments. Also, the study area in terms of vulnerability includes three classes with medium risk, high and very high and covers 16, 62 and 22% of the area, respectively. Flood and upland Spreading areas, risk areas and lowland lands are the most vulnerable parts of the basin in terms of floods and sedimentary deposits.
 
Conclusion
Based on the results obtained by combining the information layersof the factors influencing the stream pattern change, the zoning map of vulnerable areas of the region was created in 5 classes. Except for very few and very small classes that are not present in the region, there are other cases at the basin level:
Medium class:Includes about 16% of the basin. The existing watersheds in this part are ranked 1th class, and some of them are entering the rivers of Dojraj and Chiqab in the eastern and western parts. The formations of this part are often Bakhtyari and limitedly Aghajari. The floors have a height of 100 to 400 meters and the gradient is from 0-2 percent to 20 percent.
Medium class: About 62% of the basin level. The watersheds that flow in this section are in 1to 5 class. The formations of this part are often alluvial and bakhtiari of lahbori sections. It has a height of less than 100 meters to 300 meters and a gradient of 2-0 percent to 20 percent.
very intense: it covers about 22% of the basin's surface. The existing watersheds are of of class 2 and 3. The formations of this part are often alluvial and bakhtiari of lahbori sections. They have height classes of 100 to 300 meters and the gradient is 5-2 percent and is limited to 5 to 10 percent in the slopes.
 
Keywords: Vulnerability, Aquifer, zoning, Satellite imagery, Environmental hazards, Musian

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Synoptic analysis of the torrential on Day 21, 1398 (Case study: Zahedan and Qeshm)

Abstract
Rainfall is the most important phenomenon or feature of the environment and so far many studies have been done about its causes. In any place, rainfall occurs when humid air and climbing cause are provided. Both of these conditions are provided by the circulation pattern. The study area is affected by some severe and sudden weather phenomena such as low annual rainfall, short rainfall period and rainfall in the form of heavy showers. Thus, it is possible that the limited and pervasive precipitation of the area is due to a different synoptic pattern. Because the relationship between circulation patterns and precipitation is significant, achieving acceptable results in the field of the relationship between these patterns with the limit and total rainfall of the studying area requires the analysis of synoptic maps. Therefore, the most important purpose of the present study is the synoptic analysis of heavy cloud rainfall of the studying area on Day 1398.
Two sets of data were required for this study: A: Daily precipitation data of study stations on the day of heavy cloud rainfall on 21 Day (January 11, 2020) along with daily precipitation data in the days before the flood (96 hours before the flood) which was received from the main Meteorological Organization of the country.
B: atmosphere data levels including: sea level (SLP), 850 and 500 hPa levels, vertical atmospheric velocity and wind flow levels of 1000, 850 and 500 hPa, specific humidity of 1000 and 700 hPa levels and 250 hPa surface flow winds for study days from the US National Center for Environmental Forecasting / National Atmospheric Research Center (NCEP/NCAR) were provided in the range of 0 to 60 degrees at north latitude and 0 to 80 degrees at east longitude, and finally, maps were drawn and prepared in Gardes software to provide the ability to interpret.
The synoptic analysis of sea level showed that: on the day of the heavy cloud, a low-height closed center with a central core of 1,010 hPa in the northeast-southwest direction covered the entire study area. Then, the high-height with a central core equal to 1030 hPa is located at northwest of Iran, northwest of Europe and on Tibet. According to the location of high-pressure dams around Iran and the location of low-pressure centers on the study area and water resources in the south, a strong pressure has been created. Subsequently, with height increasing, low-height with central core equal to 1440 geopotential meters is located at northeast-southwest direction of entire study area. And the low height of northern Russia extends to the Persian Gulf and provides the conditions for severe ascent and instability in a very large area. The rear dams of Nave transferred the cold air of the high latitudes into the bottom of the Nave located on the study area and have intensified the instability. Also, the geopotential height of 500 hPa level of deep descent is located at the northeast-southwest direction of Iran and core of the Nave covers the Persian Gulf completely, that is the study area in the best condition and in front of the Nave, which is diverged by hot and humid weather. This deepening of the rotation and the penetration of the Nave to the lower latitudes caused the cold air to fall. 
The analysis of the 250-hectopascal-level flow-wind shows that the flow-wind with a core speed of 65 meters per second has covered the entire study area by crossing above the Persian Gulf, and compared to the previous days, the flow-wind is completely meridional.
Synoptic analysis of the vertical velocity at the level of 1000 hPa shows that the maximum negative omega -0.2 to -0.15 Pascal per second in the northwest-southeast direction has covered the study area. The presence of negative omega index values ​​indicates the role of convection in intensifying precipitation in mentioned area and the dynamic ascent of air. The study map shows that compared to other countries in the study map, the maximum of negative omega is located on Iran, which is reduced along to the west of Iran. With increasing altitude, the maximum negative omega has increased to -0.3 Pascal per second and the core of the maximum negative omega is completely located on the study stations (Zahedan and Qeshm). Then, at the level of 500 hPa, the maximum negative omega has reached -0.6 Pascal per second and its value has doubled compared to the level of 850 hPa, which covers the northeast-southwest direction from Zahedan to the Strait of Hormuz. Cold air fall has increased with increasing of omega levels in the middle levels of the atmosphere.In other words, in the middle levels of the atmosphere, with increasing temperature difference between the earth's surface and the level of 500 hPa, the amount of precipitation has increased.
Synoptic analysis of specific moisture level of 1000 hPa shows that the most moisture deposition was from south water sources to the study area, and the amount of moisture equal to 14 grams per kilogram has entered the study area from the Oman Sea and then its amount has been reduced crossing to other regions of Iran. Furthermore, at the level of 700 hPa, the maximum advection of hot and humid air is in front of the upper atmosphere of Nave from the Red Sea over the study area. There is a moisture strip from the southeast to the whole area under analysis. These suitable humidity conditions with the depth of the western wave have been able to cause heavy cloud rainfall. The maximum amount of moisture in the study area is equal to 7 grams per kilogram, which is a large amount compared to heavy rainfalls.

Keywords: heavy rainfall, flood, synoptic, Zahedan, Qeshm

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Determination of flood-prone areas using Sentinel-1 Radar images
(Case study: Flood on March 2019, Kashkan River, Lorestan Province)

Introduction
Although natural hazards occur in all parts of the world, their incidence is higher in Asia than in any other part of the world. Natural phenomena are considered as natural hazards when they cause damage or financial losses to human beings. Iran is also one of the high-risk countries in terms of floods. Until 2002, about 467 floods have been recorded by the country's hydrometric stations. In addition to natural factors such as rainfall, researchers consider human impacts such as destruction of vegetation cover, soil destruction, inefficient management, destruction of pastures and forests, and encroachment on the river are the most important factors for the occurrence and damage of floods in the country. One of the most efficient and emerging tools in flood surveys is the use of radar images. SAR images and flood maps produced by radar images provide researchers valuable and reliable information. Moreover, maps obtained from SAR images help officials to manage the crisis and take preventive measures against floods. The Sentinel-1 satellite is part of the Copernicus program, launched by the European Space Agency, and is widely used in mapping flood-prone areas. The contribution of Sentinel-1 to the application of flood mapping arises from the sensitivity of the backscatter signal to open water. This study aims to determine high-risk and flood-prone areas along the Kashkan River using Sentinel-1 radar images.
Data and Methods
 The study area includes a part of the Kashkan river from Mamolan city to the connection point of this river to Seymareh river, after Pol-dokhtar city. The average annual discharge of the Kashkan river is 33.2 cubic meters per second based on the data of the Pole-Kashkan Station. The length of the river in the study area is about 100 km. To investigate flood-prone areas, we applied pre-processing and image-processing steps to each flood event including SAR images belonging to March 25^th, 2019, March 31^st 2019, and April 2^nd, 2019. SAR images were acquired from ESA Copernicus Open Access Hub. climatic data was downloaded from power.larc.nasa.gov. To create meander cross-sections, the Digital Elevation Model of the studied area was utilized. Cross-sections were created using QGIS software. Pre-processing steps include: applying orbit data, removing SAR thermal noise, calibration of SAR images, de-speckling and topographic correction. In image processing, we applied the Otsu thresholding method to distinguish water pixels from land pixels. In thresholding methods, the histogram of each image is divided into two parts according to the amount of gray composition. The higher the amount of gray (i.e., the pixel tends to be darker), the more pixels represent water, and conversely, the lighter-toned pixels (i.e., pixels that tend to whiten) represent land. The Otsu thresholding method is a commonly used method for water detection in SAR images. It uses an image histogram to determine the correct threshold. The most important feature of the Otsu method is that it is capable of determining the threshold automatically. The Otsu algorithm was applied to all images using MATLAB.
Results
According to the flood maps, on March 25th, 6.51 percent of the study area was flooded, while on March 31th, only 3.96 percent was flooded. This is mainly due to less precipitation on the 31st. On March 25^th the average daily precipitation was 47.46 mm while on 31^st of March the average daily precipitation was 31.64 mm. On April 2nd, however, there was no rainfall, on the day before more than 63 mm of precipitation has occurred. This massive amount of precipitation on the previous day has led to more than 25km2 being flooded in the studied area.
Conclusion
Results showed that meanders and their surrounding areas are the most dangerous sections in terms of flooding. The meander's dynamic and the river's hydrologic processes are essential factors affecting flooding in those sections. Generally, various factors affect flooding and the damage caused by it. This study aimed to determine flooded and flood-prone areas (according to flooded areas in previous events) using new methods in a short time and with high accuracy to use this tool for more accurate zoning and efficient planning in the future. The results showed that radar images are practical, robust, and reliable tools for determining flooded areas, especially for rapid and near-real-time studies of flood events.
Keywords: Floods, Radar images, Sentinel-1Satelitte, Kashkan river



 

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Comparison of Results of GIS-Based Multicriteria Decision Analysis and Remote Sensing Indicators in Kahir River Basin, Iran.

Alireza Khosravi¹, Mehdi Azhdary Moghaddam^2*, Seyed Arman Hashemi Monfared³,
 Hamid Nazaripour⁴

1. M.Sc. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
2. Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
3. Associate professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
4.Assistant professor, Department of Physical Geography, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.


Abstract
Flood risk maps and Flood zoning techniques are useful tools to manage this hazard in the catchment and mitigation of flood impacts. In South Baluchestan and Kahir Basin, due to the existence of winter and summer precipitation regimes, the occurrence of flash floods is inevitable due to the establishment of rural communities and settlements in flood-prone areas, the flooding has caused many damages to the region's vulnerable population. In order to zone flood risk and prepare flood risk maps, climatic data, hydrological, land cover, and topography of the basin were prepared from reliable sources and according to scientific studies, 12 variables affecting flood risk in the form of five main components (Hydrology, vegetation, land cover, climate, and topography) were prepared. According to the regional conditions of the basin, using the opinions of experts based on scientific methods, the weight of each variable and component was determined by Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP). Using two methods of fuzzy overlay, Weighted Overlay, and the Geographical Information System facilities, a map of variables and components was prepared after reclassification and fuzzy membership function with appropriate operators. The results showed that the fuzzy overlay method concerning its dominant logic has a better distinction of flood-prone areas and can help determine flood hazard micro-zonation in the drainage basins like the Kahir basin. By comparing the results from the real data of the January 2020 flood obtained from satellite images. Due to poor infrastructure and high economic, the risk of flooding may be more harmful and widespread in the future.

Keywords: Flood, Fuzzy logic, Weighted overlay, Southern Baluchestan, GIS.
 

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Changes in the hydrological response due to climatic parameters and human induced activities can be derived from indicators based on the analysis of flow duration curves. The purpose of this research is to determine the flood and the low flow parameters using the flow duration curves. The trend detection technique can be used as a useful tool in deterimining the temporal changes of the different hydro-meteorological parameters. The river gauge stations of the Ardabil province were used for the analysis of high and low flow occurrence in this study. The spatial variations of the flood events can be used as a preliminary guideline for the prioritization of the watershed in the vulnerability assessment and management-oriented measures. Also, the assessment of low flow condition is a useful tool in the allocation of environmental flow allocation and utilization of river surface water resources.
Methodology:
In this research, temporal and spatial changes of Q₁₀, Q₅₀, Q₉₀, Q_90/50 and Lane indices in 31 hydrometric stations of Ardabil province during the period from 1993- 2014 were evaluated. The flow duration curve of each river gauge stations was derived. The flow duration curves also were plotted based on the dimensionless flow divided by the mean discharge and the upstream area of each river gauge station. Also, the temporal variations of the of Q₁₀, Q₅₀, Q₉₀, Q_90/50 and Lane indices were analysed using non-parametric Man Kendall trend test. Then the significant level of upward and downward trend directions were determined. In this study, the results of 5 river gauge stations were presented as example based on the the river flow ranges, which includes low, medium and high river flow discharge (Hajahmadkandi, Nanakaran, Shamsabad, Polesoltani, and Booran).
 
Results:
Based on the results, the trend of Q₁₀ (Flood flow index) was significant at the stations located on the main trunk of the Qarehsou river. Meanwhile the Q₅₀ (average flow index) has a significant decreasing trend in most of the studied river gauge stations. In addition, Q₉₀ and Q_90/50 indices have a significant decreasing trend in most stations. In addition, Q₉₀ and Q_90/50 indices had a significant decrease at (p<0.05) regarding the Lane index as a flood related indicator in the Arbabkandi and Dostbeglo stations, which are affected by the dam construction there is a significant decreasing trend.
Conclusion:
I summary, the values of flood flow index in the upstream rivers of the Ardabil province had a increasing trend.

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Introduction
A flood is a natural disaster caused by heavy rainfall, which causes casualties and damage to infrastructure and crops. Trend of floods in the world increasing due to climate change, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels in the future, and in addition, population growth and urban development and human settlements near river have caused floods to become a threat to humans. One of the most important and necessary tasks in catchments is to prepare flood risk maps and analyze them. In recent decades, researchers have been using remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems to obtain flood risk maps in an area. Due to the numerous floods that have occurred in the Neka river catchment, it is necessary to conduct a study entitled zoning of flood sensitivity in Neka river catchment for more effective management in this area.

Materials and methods
Study area: Neka river catchment area with an area of ​​1922 Km2 is part of Mazandaran province in terms of political divisions. This basin is between 53º 17´ 54 º44´ east and 36 º 28 ´to 36 º 42´ of north latitude. The highest point of the basin is 3500 m (Shahkuh peak) and the height of the lowest point of the basin in the Ablo station is about 50 m and at the connection to the Caspian Sea is -27 meters. The seven sub-basins of this basin are Laksha, Golord, Burma, Metkazin, Kiasar, Alarez and Sorkh Griyeh. Geologically, the basin is mostly of calcareous and marl formations. In the south and southwest of Neka River, the rock material is mostly clay and calcareous marl, which makes this basin has a high erosion potential
To study the flood zoning of the area using a multi-criteria decision model, 1: 25000 maps of the surveying organization and a digital elevation model with a resolution of 12.5 meters (Alos Palsar) were extracted. In order to study the flood risk in Neka river, 4 criteria of height, distance from the river, land use and slope have been used. In the present study, modeling and preparation of flood risk zoning map in 4 stage including descending valuation, normalization of each class, normalized index weight and integration of criteria has been done by the following linear weighting method. Performing linear weighting operations depends on the weighted average of a number of selected parameters in the opinion of the expert. According to the weight assigned to each criterion based on the expert opinion, each of the criteria was multiplied by the assigned weight and at the end the criteria were added together and the final zoning map was obtained.

Results and Discussion
In this study, using a multi-criteria decision-making system model, a flood risk zoning map in the Neka river catchment was prepared. According to the weight assigned to each criterion based on expert opinion, the final risk probability map has a value between 0.02 to 0.2, which is ultimately divided into 5 classes in terms of flood risk. Value range 0.02 to 0.06 component of very low risk zone, range 0.08 to 0.11 component of low-risk zone, range 0.11 to 0.13 component of medium-risk zone, range 0.13 to 0.16 component of high-risk zone, and finally domain 0.16 to 0.20 components of the area with very high risk potential have been obtained. According to the final divisions in the flood risk zoning map of the catchment area, a safe area means areas where the probability of flooding is very low and close to zero, and in contrast, the area with a high and very high risk potential for flooding has the probability of high-risk floods. According to the final flood risk zoning map, about 982 Km2 (51%) has high and very high vulnerability, as well as about 510 Km2 (26.69%) has medium vulnerability in Neka catchment area.

Conclusion
The results obtained from the model indicates that the highest risk of flooding points are located in the western parts of the Neka catchment area and the end of the catchment area that reach the city of Neka. According to the research findings, the most important factors in increasing the risk of floods were the slope in this area and the distance from the drainage network. According to the results of the model, a large area of ​​the basin is a component of high risk zone, that means the Neka river watershed has a high potential for floods. Evidence and documented reports show that the Neka river Basin has experienced several floods in the last two decades. The major part of the occurrence of floods is due to the natural conditions of the basin, thus it is necessary to reduce flood damage by changing the locations of various land uses based on flood vulnerability maps. Using multi-criteria decision making method can be used to prepare flood risk zoning maps in basins that do not have hydrometric data; It is also a more cost-effective method in terms of time. One of the important issues in the final result of this model is due to the weight of the layers, which should be used by experts, who are familiar with the region and this method and adapt to field evidence.

Keyworlds: Flood, Multi-criteria decision making system(MCDA), Hazard zoning, Nekarod, Natural hazard.



 

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