| dc.description.abstract | During the last decade, climate change has generated extreme rainfall events triggering flash
floods in short periods worldwide. The delimitation of flood zones by detailed mapping generally
makes it possible to avoid human and economic losses, especially in regions at high risk of flooding.
The Taguenit basin, located in southern Morocco, is a particular case. The mapping of the flood zones
of this basin by the method of the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) in a GIS geographic information systems
environment was based on the multi-criteria analysis, taking into consideration the seven parameters
influencing these extreme phenomena, namely rainfall, slope, flow accumulation, drainage network
density, distance from rivers, permeability, and land use. Average annual rainfall data for 37 years
(1980 to 2016) was used in this study for floodplain mapping. A weight was calculated for each
parameter using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The combination of the maps of
the different parameters made it possible to draw up a final map classified into five risk intervals:
very high, high, moderate, lower and very lower presenting, respectively, 8.04%, 20.63%, 31.47%,
15.36%, and 24.50% of the area of the basin. The reliability of this method was tested by a Flood
susceptibility analysis. The results generated by the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) model are similar
to those of previous historical events. Realistic and applicable solutions have been proposed to
minimize the impact of these floods as much as possible. | |
