Comprehensive flood risk assessment and identification of the potential flood mitigation strategies

Abstract

Floods are among the natural disasters frequently encountered in our country, i.e. Turkey, and across the globe. Considering some of the conditioning factors, such as geographical location, geological and hydrological structure and even demographic characteristics, that characterize the formation of natural disasters, the most common natural disasters in Turkey are described as floods. A total of 1209 floods occurred in Turkey between 1975 and 2015, resulting in 720 deaths and the inundation of 900,000 hectares. In addition, floods cause an annual average of 100 million dollars of economic loss. The constitution of floods may vary in different types; scuh that coastal floods are frequent in coastal areas, while river floods mostly occur in rural and/or urban areas, and urban flooding poses significant challenges in densely populated regions. In this context, especially in cities with high population densities, urban flood events not only cost human lives but also cause serious property damage. Istanbul is also among the cities that frequently face urban floods across Turkey. The city is the most populated city in Turkey with a population of approximately 16 million (2986 people/km²) and is at serious risk of flooding. Therefore, within the scope of this thesis, it is aimed to determine the regions that may be affected as a result of the floods potentially occur in Istanbul and to reveal the factors that trigger the vulnerability of these regions. In order to ensure the functionality of both data collection procedures and the early diagnosis actions to be determined on an administrative basis, analyzes were carried out on a district basis in this thesis. Through district-based analyzes, both hazard and vulnerability factors, which are the two most critical pillars of the risk concept, were carried taken into account. In line with the hazard cluster, stormwater pipe network, slope, imperviousness (in terms of curve number), number of rainy days and return period of storm event criteria were taken into the consideration. Within the scope of vulnerability cluster, vulnerable structures, population density, vulnerable population, education level, income level, transportation network, number of households and land use criteria were considered. Thus, this thesis not only tried to determine the regions having high susceptibility of flooding but also sought to designate the social environments, i.e., residents and/or buildings, that have the potential to be damaged as a result of floods. In the research articles included in this thesis, multi-criteria decision-making algorithms were used to perform the district-based flood risk mapping of Istanbul. In the first research article published within the scope of the thesis, district-based flood risk maps were generated using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, and risky districts and the criteria to be taken into account specific to these districts were identified. In the second research article published within the scope of the thesis, the perception differences on the flood risk of four different stakeholders (i.e., Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration, Disaster Coordination Center, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Universities) at Istanbul scale were analyzed. For these purpose, the technique for order of preference by the similarity-to-ideal-solution (TOPSIS) method was integrated along with the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process method utilized in the first study. As a result of the model configurations on the basis of expert judgments pertaining to abovementioned four institutions, flood risk, flood hazard and flood vulnerability maps were separately generated. The third research article published within the scope of the thesis focused on the interrelationships of the criteria that were not examined in the previous two studies. On the other hand, for the first time in the literature, analyzes were carried out using two distintictive criteria weighting methods (analytical hierarchy process for the hazard cluster and analytical network process for the vulnerability cluster) together. At this point, another innovation that has been methodically accomplished is the integration of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method which was used in the refinement of the analytical network process framework. Visekriterijumska optimizacija i compromisno resenje (VIKOR) method, which is accepted as an improved version of the TOPSIS method, was performed to prioritize the districts in terms of flood risk by combining the outputs obtained from the two different criteria weighting methods and the numerical values of the corresponding criteria. According to the findings obtained in the first of the articles published within the scope of the thesis, land use, population density and the vulnerable structures were determined as the most important vulnerability criteria, while the return period of a storm event, imperviousness and stormwater pipe networks were obtained as the most significant hazard criteria. On the other hand, the comparison between the main clusters, i.e., vulnerability and hazard, indicates that these two classes have almost equal importance in terms of the flood risk concept in Istanbul. In addition, sensitivity analyzes were implemented in order to illustrate the stability and robustness of the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process applications. According to the district-based analyzes, Bayrampasa, Bagcilar and Esenler were found to be the three most risky districts with the significant effect of their dense populations. While Uskudar, Bayrampasa and Bagcilar districts stand out according to the hazard cluster representing the probability of flood events, it was concluded that special precautions should be taken for Gaziosmanpasa, Gungoren and Beyoglu districts according to the analyzes made within the generic of vulnerability cluster. According to the findings obtained in the second of the articles published within the scope of the thesis, disaster management and coordination authorities and local municipalities have point out that hazard and vulnerability clusters have almost similar importance in terms of flood risk. On the other hand, water and sewerage administrations take the hazard class into consideration, while universities consider vulnerability more important than the other. Once the produced flood risk maps and correlation analyzes are examined, one can conclude that there are high perception differences between the judgments of the experts from universities and water and sewerage administration, while perception similarities can be seen among other stakeholders. Therefore, this study highlighted that the inclusion of only one type of stakeholder in the flood risk management system is not sufficient to evaluate the overall flood risk criteria. Instead, it was concluded that the participation of various stakeholders from different disciplines is required to make more reliable flood risk analyzes. Hence, the results of this study not only provide a flood risk maps showing the most flood-prone districts of Istanbul, but also reveal the perception differences among various stakeholders who are responsible for taking the necessary measures to reduce, prevent and manage the flood risk. According to the findings obtained in the third of the articles published within the scope of the thesis, the income level, which is one of the criteria evaluated in the vulnerability class, not only affects all the vulnerability criteria, but also has been affected by the others (vulnerable structures, population density, vulnerable population, and education level). In addition, although the education level criterion affects all other criteria, it is only affected by the income level. Also, the population density criterion is almost as important as the education level according to the results of the study. The insight gained from the DEMATEL analysis has indicated that the population density is highly correlated with the education level and income level. Furthermore, the analyzes performed for the hazard cluster showed that the return period of a storm event is the most important criterion. Hence, especially considering extreme rainfall events where climate change has a great impact, district management authorities should take special measures such as flood-retardant structures and rainwater harvesting on their agenda to deal with the floods. In addition, storm water pipe networks and imperviousness criteria, which are among the other hazard related criteria, have been found to have very close importance to each other. At this point, the fact that districts with old or insufficient storm water drainage systems focus on these investments, increase the amount of green areas in districts where the land use includes urbanization intensively, or implement sustainable measures such as green roofs on existing buildings will make significant contributions to reducing the flood risk in the relevant regions and/or districts. In general, within the scope of this thesis, comprehensive flood risk analyzes were carried out for Istanbul. In addition, not only flood risk mapping, but also the ways to be followed for strategies to reduce the flood risk in risky areas are pointed out. In this context, it is believed that the publications contained in this thesis will be useful for not only Istanbul but also entire country and will play a guiding role in taking the necessary actions.