Flood risk visualization software

Floods have caused such tremendous devastation which contributes to excessive losses and causes untold suffering to millions of people affected by it. Even today, floods lead all natural disasters in the number of people affected and contributing to great economic loss, with these numbers rising at an alarming rate.

The aim of this study is to provide a framework for flood hazard map identification, mapping and information related to flooding visualization from previous flooding of the study area.

The objectives of this project are

i) to model flood hazard area of the Sg Segamat catchment using two dimensional (2D) hydrodynamic modelling and geospatial techniques data analysis and visualization,

ii) to produce geospatial flood hazard inventory of area, types of land use, number of people (i.e. age, gender etc.) affected which can be displayed as statistical and visual informative results.

The Infoworks RS, ArcGIS and ArcScene which are computational programmes for designing and managing solutions through the application of geographic knowledge were used to determine the flooding behaviour technically and spatially.

In this study the model represents the hydraulic phenomena in Sg Segamat catchment which occurred from 16-28 December 2006.The development of this hydrodynamic models consist of coupling one dimensional (1D) the focus area being for rivers and network system with the two dimensional (2D) which is on flood plains and overland flow path. The dynamic communication between models will greatly assist in predicting the level of hazards within certain time steps.

The outcome of the study indicated that the most affected area was in the downstream region of Sungai Segamat. More than half of the flood area (57.9%) is located at the Mukim Gemereh which lies in the downstream of Sungai Segamat catchment. Other specific areas which are inundated by flood were Bandar Segamat, Kg. Chabong, Kg Tg Sengkawan, Taman Mega, Kg Jawa and Kg Padang Lalang.

The validation of the results shows 61% of the total flood inundation area lies in the same area of the modelled flood. The adversely affected land use activity was agricultural activities which were predominantly rubber plantations. The integration techniques between hydraulic modelling and geospatial data preparation and analysis were able to provide insightful framework for better flooding understanding and information in spatial manner.

The flood information visualization derived from this study may be suitable to be used as tool especially, for water resources planning and management as well as by local authorities such as from Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) and also by Town, Country and Planning for better flooding decision making analysis related to flooding.