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A NEW GEOMORPHIC INDEX FOR THE DETECTION OF FLOOD-PRONE

AREAS AT LARGE SCALE

Conference Paper · September 2016

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Caterina Samela Tara Troy

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 XXXV Convegno Nazionale di Idraulica e Costruzioni Idrauliche
Bologna, 14-16 Settembre 2016

A NEW GEOMORPHIC INDEX FOR THE DETECTION

OF FLOOD-PRONE AREAS AT LARGE SCALE
Caterina Samela1, Tara J. Troy2, Aurelia Sole1, Salvatore Manfreda1
(1) Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Potenza, 85100, Italy (caterina.samela@unibas.it); (2) Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
18015, USA.

KEY POINTS:
 A practical and cost-effective method is proposed to realize a fast delineation of the floodplains in the contexts
where the available data are too poor to carry out hydrological/hydraulic analyses.
 The linear binary classification using the recently proposed Geomorphic Flood Index (GFI) exhibited high
classification accuracies and reliability in several applications.
 The flood-prone areas for a return period of 100 year have been derived for the continental U.S. using the linear
binary classifier based on the GFI.

1 INTRODUCTION

Floods are the most frequently occurring natural hazard throughout the world and the costliest: flood
damage constitutes about a third of the economic losses inflicted by natural hazards worldwide (Munich Re,
2006).
In spite of the recent advancements in computational techniques and availability of high-resolution
topographic data, a complete flood hazard map is still lacking in many countries. Although
hydrologic/hydraulic models are the best approach for deriving detailed inundation maps, their use is a
resource intensive exercise requiring large amounts of money and time. The main difficulty is mainly
correlated to the significant amount of data and parameters required by these models, that makes their
calibration and validation a rather challenging task (Di Baldassarre et al., 2009). High costs associated with
traditional modelling approaches make them unaffordable not only for developing countries. In U.S., for
instance, many rural counties and several lower order streams do not have any associated flood inundation
information. FEMA (2006) estimated that flood inundation mapping can cost from $3,000 to $6,000 per km
of river reach in the U.S. Therefore, there is a need to look at efficient and inexpensive ways of developing
flood inundation maps.
In this scenario, useful indications about the flood exposure of a given area can be obtained analysing the
basin morphology. Actually, floodplain geomorphology is essentially shaped by flood-driven phenomena
(Arnaud-Fassetta et al., 2009) and a mutual causal relationship exists between flooding and the shape and
extension of floodplains.
Given this assumption, the primary objective of the presented research is proposing an innovative
approach for a preliminarily delineation of the floodplains for large-scale analyses. This tool intends to be
practical and cost-effective compared to the conventional engineering approach, and based on information
easily available worldwide. Several studies have been dedicated to understand what are the most meaningful
geomorphologic attributes as concerns the flood inundation process, and how to use such descriptors to map
the flood exposure over large spatial scales.

2 METHODS AND MATERIALS

A linear binary classification is performed to distinguish between flood-prone areas and areas not prone
to floods. This approach requires two input data:
- Digital Elevation Models (DEM) to extract the morphological descriptors of a basin. For the purpose of
our studies, the DEM-Void and DEM-CON obtained from USGS HydroSHEDS with a 3 arc-second
resolution have been used; the area was then regridded with a cell size of 90 m.
- Standard flood hazard maps derived using hydraulic models, necessary for limited portions of the basin
of interest. This map is used to train the classifiers.
 C. Samela et al. – A new geomorphic index for the detection of flood-prone areas at large scale

In previous studies, we carried out an extended analysis, considering eleven morphological descriptors
presumed to be good candidates as indicator of flood hazard exposure. Among them, we considered the five
single features tested in the work of Degiorgis et al. (2012), with the addition of six composite indices
(Manfreda et al., 2014b).
These eleven classifiers have been tested in a number of case studies, in order to identify their
performances in different hydrologic, climatic and topographic contexts. Several Italian gauged basins
(upper Tiber, Chiascio, Basento, Bradano, Agri, Sinni, Cavone, Noce) and an ungauged basin in Africa
(Bulbula River, Ethiopia) have been investigated (Manfreda et al., 2014a,b; Manfreda et al., 2015; Samela et
al., 2015). In addition, a study over the U.S. has been carried out, moving from basin-scale analyses to a
continental-scale application (Samela et al., 2016). In these analyses the sensitivity of the classifiers to
changes in terms of DEM resolution, standard flood maps adopted (1-D or 2-D hydraulic model), return
time, dominant topography of the training area, and scale of analysis has been tested.
In spite of the exhaustive investigation conducted, very few classifiers were useful to identify the flood-
prone areas. The results suggested that the proposed classifier named Geomorphic Flood Index (GFI)
consistently exhibits higher accuracies among the others in each test, and is the most suitable morphologic
classifier among those examined for the preliminary mapping over large unstudied areas and in data poor
environments. This index is defined as:

h 
ln  r  (1)
H
It compares in each point of the basin a variable water depth hr (‘r’ stands for ‘river’) with the elevation
difference (H) to the nearest element of the drainage network, identified following the hydrological paths. h r
is computed as a function of the contributing area Ar in the nearest section of the drainage network
hydrologically connected to the point under exam (see eq. 2); by taking into account an estimate of the water
level in the nearest element of the drainage network hr we are considering the nearest river as the hazard
source.
h r  bA nr (2)
The analyses by Samela et al. (2016) allowed also to give a recommendation about the minimum required
size of the training area. It was observed that the performances of the classifier based on the GFI have a
small variability as long as the training area is larger than 2% of the total area of the basin. This result
suggests not adopting a calibration area lower than 2% of the basin’s area in order to perform a good study.

3 APPLICATION AND RESULTS

Given these considerations, an application of the linear binary classification using the GFI across the
continental U.S. is presented. Considering the significant extent of the study area, the analyses were
performed sub-dividing the Country according to the eighteen water-resources regions identified by U.S.
Geological Survey, excluding the regions of Alaska, Hawaii and Caribbean
(http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/huc_name.html). In order to calibrate the classifier, the FEMA 1-percent annual
chance floodplains (100-year flood) determined by detailed methods of analysis have been adopted. A
training area of a sufficient size (larger than 2%) within each water resources region has been used.
A pictorial representation of the resulting flood-prone areas is reported in Figure 1. The large-scale map
allows to see that the index produces a realistic description of the flood prone areas, with the possibility to
extend the flood hazard information in those portions of the Country where the FEMA’s maps are lacking.
This happens, in particular, in the central and western U.S. characterized by extensive voids in the FEMA’s
flood hazard graduation. The panel 1 in the upper part of the figure shows the areas exposed to flood hazard
in the continental U.S. according to the linear binary classifier based on the GFI (depicted in dark blue). In
the same figure, we reported four sub-plots with a comparison between the FEMA’s flood map (turned into a
binary map) and the flood-prone areas map identified using GFI at a smaller scale that allow to better
appreciate the obtained results. Image 2.A and 2.B focus on the confluence between Mississippi and
 C. Samela et al. – A new geomorphic index for the detection of flood-prone areas at large scale

Missouri River often involved in extensive floods. Image 3.A and 3.B show the state of Colorado, which was
hit in September 2013 by a severe flooding, that caused the death of 8 people and $2 billion in damage
across a range of almost 320 km from north to south.

Figure 1. The map 1 shows the flood-prone areas identified in the continental U.S. according to the linear binary classifier based on
the Geomorphic Flood Index for a return period of 100-year (depicted in dark blue). The following two couples of images show a
more detailed comparison between the FEMA flood map (turned into a binary map) and the flood-prone areas identified using this
approach.
 C. Samela et al. – A new geomorphic index for the detection of flood-prone areas at large scale

Results demonstrate that the linear binary classification may help designing new strategies for the
delineation of flood-prone areas for large-scale applications and in data scarce environments. It provides
good detection accuracies with simple data requirements, low costs and reduced computational times. This
kind of simplified approach is generally of high interest to both researchers and decision-makers since
increasing portions of the population affected by flooding live in developing countries where data
availability is often poor.
The flood-prone areas maps derived for the eighteen water resources regions will be published online and
available for consultation and download (http://www2.unibas.it/manfreda/HydroLab/Research.html).

REFERENCES

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