Ph.D. Candidate
Mr Emlyn HAGEN

Afghanistan Flood Hazard Mapping

Afghanistan is a nation prone to natural disasters such as floods and droughts. Yet the severe floods of 2005 and 2006, which displaced thousands, highlighted how little was known about floods in the mountainous nation. Every year, Afghan's violent floods make thousands homeless and kill scores of people. Additionally these floods destroy houses, bridges, roads and other essential infrastructure. Until present it was not known how to predict where these floods will occur or their extent.

This study will research and create a flood hazard map of entire Afghanistan which will support the planning and preparing of relief operations, as well as expanding our understanding of flood prediction methodologies in developing countries. The Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map (AFG-FHM) has the potential to save millions of dollars investment in locating safe construction sites, and will support effective decision making of engineers on the ground. Distributing the flood map to the UN, Red Cross and NGOs, will result in more efficient relief operations and lessening the burden on aid agencies resources. The AFG-FHM is created in collaboration and with support of NC3A; it is expected to be the main nationwide flood map resource for the next decade.

Most existing flood models rely on very accurate input data, such as river cross-sections and river flow data based on weather and gauge station data. Furthermore these models can generally only be applied on a small area, with a small number of tributaries. Due to the limited availability of river gauge measurement data and climate data, the AFG-FHM needed a novel approach without compromising on accuracy.

AFG-FHM is created using a Gauckler-Manning-Strickler hydraulic model, calibrated with observed past-flood events. It utilized a high resolution DEM elevation model as main input data, and was validated against high resolution satellite and aerial imagery. Using this approach a flood depth and likelihood map was created, which is available in GRID format and vector format.