Integration of Geospatial Techniques for Flood Hazards Detection in Wadi Atfih, Eastern Desert, Egypt

Abstract

Combining geospatial techniques (remote sensing and GIS techniques) with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) can provide a promising tool for flood risk detection. Therefore, this study aimed to use advanced remote sensing and geospatial techniques combined with the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to detect flood risks in Wadi Atfih, Eastern Desert Egypt, to produce a flood risk map (FRM). Therefore, multi-sensor remote sensing data from ASTER, Landsat-8, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM), and Radarsat-1 were used to construct several geospatial thematic layers. These layers (variables) include elevation, slope, drainage density, topographic moisture index, accumulated precipitation, land use and land cover (LULC), and distance from the river. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was adopted to calculate the weight of the previous variables in addition to the soil type layer to produce the FRM map. This map is categorized into 3 categories, from high to low flood risk. Based on the results, geospatial techniques combined with the analytical hierarchy process can provide a powerful tool for flood risk detection in arid and semi-arid lands and can thus be applied in regions with similar conditions.