Flood risk assessment using multi-criteria analysis: a case study from Kopili River Basin, Assam, India

A multi-criteria analysis (MCA) approach to describe the effective utilization of geospatial techniques for disaster risk reduction at village level in Kopili River Basin (KRB) of Assam State, India is presented. The KRB is chronically flood affected due to seasonal monsoon and rise in water levels of Kopili River. Based on the MCA approach using flood hazard layer derived from the spatio-multi-temporal historic satellite data-sets (comprising of sensors from RISAT-1 SAR, Radarsat SAR and IRS AWiFS), socio-economic data (based on five census variables), infrastructure (road network) and land use vulnerabilities (cropped and uncropped areas), flood risk zones are derived. Our study elucidates that 24,837 ha of crop area spread across 95 villages in the KRB falls in high risk zone, about 39,209 ha distributed in 150 villages falls under moderate-high risk zones and remaining area spread over 162 villages is more or less unaffected. The proposed approach can be applied elsewhere in other river basins to estimate the flood risk so as to mitigate the disaster risk posed by the floods.