Flood Hazard Mapping Using remote sensing and GIS Tools: A case study of Souss Watershed

The Souss watershed is one of the most important drainage basins in Morocco, this basin had been exposed to frequent flood hazards which were responsible for many damages in several areas of the basin, the present work introduces a flood hazard assessment methodology, using multi-criteria analysis in a GIS environment. In order for the most prone flooding areas to be identified, seven factor maps were combined in a GIS environment, these factor maps are, the rainfall intensity, the altitude, the slope ,the land use, the flow accumulation, the soil erodibility, and the distance from drainage networks, the relative importance of each parameter for the occurrence and severity of the flood has been connected to weight values, according to their weight values, information of the different parameters is superimposed, resulting in flood hazard mapping, the flood hazard for each one of these factors is classified into five categories: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high . The study area was separated into five regions characterized by different degrees of flood hazard ranging from very low to very high. The reliability of the final flood risk map is verified using historical flooded data from Souss Massa Draa Hydraulic Basin Agency (ABHSMD), the proposed methodology can be applied as a judgment making tool for flood risk mitigation to any river basin.