Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk

ISSN: 1947-5705 (Print) 1947-5713 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tgnh20

Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran, using

GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis

Omid Rahmati, Hossein Zeinivand & Mosa Besharat

To cite this article: Omid Rahmati, Hossein Zeinivand & Mosa Besharat (2016) Flood hazard
zoning in Yasooj region, Iran, using GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis, Geomatics, Natural
Hazards and Risk, 7:3, 1000-1017, DOI: 10.1080/19475705.2015.1045043

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19475705.2015.1045043

Published online: 19 May 2015.

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Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 2016
Vol. 7, No. 3, 1000
1017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19475705.2015.1045043

Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran, using GIS and multi-criteria
decision analysis

OMID RAHMATI*, HOSSEIN ZEINIVAND and MOSA BESHARAT

Department of Range and Watershed Management Engineering, Lorestan University,
Lorestan, Iran

(Received 13 October 2014; accepted 13 April 2015)

Flood is considered to be the most common natural disaster worldwide during the
last decades. Flood hazard potential mapping is required for management and
mitigation of flood. The present research was aimed to assess the efficiency of
analytical hierarchical process (AHP) to identify potential flood hazard zones by
comparing with the results of a hydraulic model. Initially, four parameters via
distance to river, land use, elevation and land slope were used in some part of the
Yasooj River, Iran. In order to determine the weight of each effective factor,
questionnaires of comparison ratings on the Saaty’s scale were prepared and
distributed to eight experts. The normalized weights of criteria/parameters were
determined based on Saaty’s nine-point scale and its importance in specifying
flood hazard potential zones using the AHP and eigenvector methods. The set of
criteria were integrated by weighted linear combination method using ArcGIS
10.2 software to generate flood hazard prediction map. The inundation
simulation (extent and depth of flood) was conducted using hydrodynamic
program HEC-RAS for 50- and 100-year interval floods. The validation of the
flood hazard prediction map was conducted based on flood extent and depth
maps. The results showed that the AHP technique is promising of making
accurate and reliable prediction for flood extent. Therefore, the AHP and
geographic information system (GIS) techniques are suggested for assessment of
the flood hazard potential, specifically in no-data regions.

1. Introduction
Flood is considered to be the most common natural disaster worldwide during the
past decades, producing many environmental and socio-economic consequences
within the affected flood plain (Marchand et al. 2009; Pradhan & Youssef 2011;
Taylor et al. 2011; Dawod et al. 2012; Vorogushyn et al. 2012; Heidari 2014; Foudi
et al. 2015). A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land, and may cause dam-
age to agricultural lands, urban areas, and may even result in loss of lives (Huang
et al. 2008; Veerbeek & Zevenbergen 2009; Merz et al. 2010; Markantonis et al. 2013;
Hudson et al. 2014; Perera et al. 2015; Yang et al. 2015).
Food hazard maps are useful tools for planning the future direction of city growth,
and are usually used to identify flood-susceptible areas (B€ uchele et al. 2006;
Vahidniaa et al. 2008; Tehrany et al. 2014a; Rahmati et al. 2015). Flood zonation
mapping and hazard analysis for different areas often involve multiple criteria/

*Corresponding author. Email: Orahmati68@gmail.com; omid_rahmati@ut.ac.ir

Ó 2015 Taylor & Francis

 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1001

factors that have to be geographically related to one another (Booij 2005; Minea
2013; Xu et al. 2013; Poussin et al. 2014).
Geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) techniques have
made significant contribution in natural hazard analysis (Vahidnia et al. 2010; Haq
et al. 2012; Patel & Srivastava 2013; Pourghasemi et al. 2013; Jaafari et al. 2014; Moel
et al. 2014). Many studies have been done on flood susceptibility mapping and flood
analysis using GIS (Bates 2004; Pradhan & Shafiee 2009; Sanyal & Lu 2009; White
et al. 2010; Strobl et al. 2012; Pradhan et al. 2014; Tehrany et al. 2014a, 2014b).
The most popular approaches in natural hazard modelling are frequency ratio
(FR) (Pradhan et al. 2011; Lee et al. 2012; Tehrany et al. 2015), analytical hierarchy
process (AHP) (Yalcin 2008; Stefanidis & Stathis 2013; Papaioannou et al. 2015),
fuzzy logic (Pradhan 2011; Perera and Lahat 2014), logistic regression (LR) (Pradhan
2010; Tehrany et al. 2014a), artificial neural networks (ANN) (Varoonchotikul 2003;
Kia et al. 2012; Lohani et al. 2014) and weights-of-evidence (WoE) (Dahal et al.
2008; Tehrany et al. 2014c).
Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been recognized as an important tool
for analyzing complex decision problems, which often involve incommensurable
data or criteria (Hwang & Lin 1987; Malczewski 2006). MCDA methods could be
employed to integrate technical, environmental and socio-economic objectives to
achieve an optimal decision (Ghanbarpour et al. 2013).
Coupled MCDA-GIS approaches have been employed in spatial modelling and
natural hazards analysis (Malczewski 2006; Scheuer et al. 2011; Paquette & Lowry
2012; Solın 2012). Different studies have demonstrated that these techniques can be
used for generating hazard maps (Emmanouloudis et al. 2008; Sinha et al. 2008; Lim
& Lee 2009; Akgun & Turk 2010; Kritikos & Davies 2011; Bui et al. 2015). AHP
(Saaty 1980) is a popular technique in the field of multi-criteria decision-making
(Rozos et al. 2011; Pourghasemi et al. 2012). One of the important problems of the
AHP method is the need for exploiting experts’ knowledge in assigning weights,
which can be considered as a source of bias. However, the main aim of disaster man-
agement is to develop a transferable methodology that can be used globally (Tehrany
et al. 2014a). The efficiency of GIS and MCDA has been assessed by Fernandez and
Lutz (2010) to map the flood-susceptible areas in Tucuman Province, Argentina.
Their study indicated that the AHP technique within a GIS environment is a power-
ful method to generate flood hazard maps with a good degree of accuracy. Subrama-
nian and Ramanathan (2012) stated that the AHP method is suitable for regional
studies. Moreover, Zou et al. (2013) described AHP as an understandable, cost-effec-
tive and convenient method for flood risk assessment.
Hydrodynamic modelling approaches have also been used by various researchers
to provide flood susceptibility mapping (Merwade et al. 2008; Matkan et al. 2009).
However, hydrological methods require fieldwork and huge budget for data collec-
tion (Refsgaard 1997; Fenicia et al. 2013). Tith (1999) investigated the floodplain
determination in Austin, USA, by combination of HEC-RAS and GIS, and found
that the combination of these two geometric simulation techniques has a great capa-
bility. Qafari (2004) simulated the hydraulic behaviour of Babolrood River, using
HEC-RAS and GIS. The result proved that using HEC-RAS and GIS has a great
capability in simulation of flood hazard zoning.
The main objective of this research is comparing flood hazard potential zones
determined using AHP with inundated areas determined by hydraulic model of
HEC-RAS in the Bashar River downstream of Yasooj city of Iran.
1002 O. Rahmati et al.

2. Description of the study area

The study area is a part of the Bashar River, downstream of Yasooj city, and lies
between the latitudes of 30 420 and 30 450 N and the longitudes of 51 290 and 51
310 E (figure 1). The total length of the study area is about 5.1 kilometers. Topo-
graphically, the Bashar River has mountainous area and flat lands. The surface ele-
vation of the area ranges between 1665 and 1835 m. The study area is considered to
have Mediterranean climate with an average annual precipitation of 829.5 mm. The
average daily minimum temperature is 7.6  C in the winter, and daily maximum tem-
perature is 22.5  C in the summer. The upper watershed area is believed to be mostly
covered by a mix of forest and rangeland. The rangelands in this part of the area are
relatively bare because of overgrazing. According to this condition, the Bashar River
is considered as potential flood-prone area.

3. Methodology
The methodology is summarized in figure 2. After selection of the study area, spatial
data, such as digital elevation model (DEM), land use/land cover map and discharge
time series measured at hydrometric stations, were collected. The cross-sectional
geometry of the channel and Manning’s roughness coefficients are expensive and
time-consuming, and thus input data for hydraulic modelling are somewhat lacking;
however, this limitation can be overcome by using an MCDA method with high
resolution.

Figure 1. Location map of study area in Iran.

 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1003

Figure 2. Flowchart showing the methodology adopted in this study.

3.1. Flood hazard potential mapping using MCDA

3.1.1. Selection criteria/factors influencing flood potential in the study area. No
exact agreement exists on which factors should be applied in flood susceptibility
assessments (Tehrany et al. 2014a). However, some of the variables are mostly used
by numerous researchers which indicate their important role in flood mapping. On
the other hand, recent studies have aimed to present models that use the least number
of independent parameters while still achieving highly accurate results (Campolo
et al. 2003).
The effective factors on the flood potential, such as slope percent, distance from riv-
ers, land use/land cover and altitude, were selected. All the mentioned factors were
converted to a raster grid with 30 £ 30 m cells for application of the AHP method.

3.1.1.1. Slope percent (S). The slope percent can be considered as surface indicator
for identification of flood susceptibility (Youssef et al. 2011). In other words, this fac-
tor must be included, since it plays an important role in determining surface runoff
velocity and vertical percolation, and thus affecting flood susceptibility. The slope
map for the study area (figure 3(a)) was generated from ASTER DEM image of the
area using ArcGIS 10.2.

3.1.1.2. Distance from rivers (D). The ‘distance from rivers’ factor plays an impor-
tant role in determining the flooding area. According to the previous studies (Fernan-
dez & Lutz 2010), the most affected areas during floods are those near these rivers, as
a consequence of overflow. This map was produced using the buffer tool in ArcGIS
10.2 software and five buffer categories were made (figure 3(b)). The distance inter-
vals used were: <100; 100
200; 200
300; 300
400 and 400
500 m.
1004 O. Rahmati et al.

Figure 3. Input thematic layers: (a) slope, (b) distance from river, (c) land use/cover, and
(d) altitude.

3.1.1.3. Land use/land cover (LULC). Land use/land cover is an important factor
to identify those zones that have shown high susceptibility to flooding (Norman
et al. 2010). Vegetated areas have low potential to flooding due to the negative rela-
tionship between flooding and vegetation density. On the other hand, residential
areas and roads, which are mostly made by impervious surfaces, and bare lands
increase the storm runoff (Tehrany et al. 2014b). In the LULC map, five landuse clas-
ses were identified: residential areas and roads, forest, river zone, cropland, and bare
lands (figure 3(c)).

3.1.1.4. Altitude (A). The altitude has significant impact on the spread of flooding
in the study area. Also, this parameter has a key role in the control of the overflow
direction movement and in the depth of the flood (Stieglitz et al. 1997). The altitude
map of the area (figure 3(d)) was generated from ASTER DEM image of the area
using ArcGIS 10.2 software. The resulting map was grouped into five classes which
are as follows: <1700; 1700
1725; 1725
1750; 1750
1775 and >1775 m represent-
ing classes 1
5, respectively.

3.1.2. Determining criteria weights. MCDA is an approach that allows map layers
to be weighted in order to reflect their relative influences (Adiate et al. 2012; Rahmati
et al. 2014). In this case, AHP was chosen over a variety of MCDA techniques to
determine the weights of the factors/criteria. This technique has gained wide applica-
tions in natural hazard estimation (Billa et al. 2006; Fernandez & Lutz 2010).
 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1005

Table 1. Saaty’s scale for weight assignment (Saaty 1980).

Numerical rating Verbal judgment of preferences

9 Extremely preferred
8 Very strongly to extremely
7 Very strongly preferred
6 Strongly to very strongly
5 Strongly preferred
4 Moderately to strongly
3 Moderately preferred
2 Equally to moderately
1 Equally preferred

In order to evaluate the weight of each parameter, a questionnaire on comparisons

ratings on a scale of 1
9 (Table 1) was prepared and distributed to eight experts
(river engineer, hydrologists, etc.) within and outside Iran. According to this scale, a
matrix of pairwise comparisons of the criteria for the AHP process was determined
using Expert Choice software. In the AHP method, the pairwise comparisons of all
the parameters were taken as the inputs while the relative weights of the parameters
were the outputs. Moreover, the final weightings for the parameters are the normal-
ized values of the eigenvectors that is associated with the maximum eigen values of
the ratio (reciprocal) matrix (Razandi et al. 2015).
Examining the consistency of the comparisons based on consistency ratio (CR)
was considered. For the comparisons to be consistent, and thus acceptable, the CR
must be less than 0.1. Therefore, CR is a numerical index to examine the consistency
of the pairwise comparison matrix and is defined as

CI
CR D ; (1)
RI

where CI is the consistency index, and RI is the random index whose value depends
on the number (n). The CI was calculated using the following formula:

λ
n
CI D ; (2)
n
1

where n D number of parameters (i.e. 4) and λ D average value of the consistency

vector.

3.1.3. Rating/scoring of the classified thematic layers. Thematic layer of each

parameter was classified as shown in figure 3. Rate gives the ranges of flood suscepti-
bility within each parameter. Ranks (R) were assigned to each class according to the
order of the influence of the class on flood hazard potential. Ranks (R) of 1
7 were
adopted, where rates 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, respectively, represent very very low, very
low, low, medium, high, very high, very very high flood hazard potential. The nor-
malized rate (NR) was calculated based on the sum of the rates assigned on each
parameter.
1006 O. Rahmati et al.

3.1.4. Estimation of the flood hazard potential index (FHPI). Weighted linear com-
bination (WLC) method was used to estimate the flood hazard potential index
(FHPI). WLC is usually specified in terms of normalized weightings for each parame-
ter as well as normalized rates for all options relative to each of the criteria. The final
utility U for each option Oi is then calculated using the following formula:

X
R Dn
U ðOiÞ D ZR ðOiÞ£W ðCR Þ; (3)
RD1

where ZR(Oi) is the normalized rate of option Oi under criterion CR, and W(CR) is
the normalized weighting for each criterion CR.
Replacing the left-hand side (LHS) of equation (3) above with FHPI and the right-
hand side (RHS) to be replaced with the sum of the products of the normalized
weights (W) and normalized ratings (NR) of each parameter, the FHPI for each cell
was computed using equation (4):

FHPIi D SW SNR C DW DNR C LULCW LULCNR C AW ANR : (4)

The subscripts W and NR indicate weights and ratings for each parameter,
respectively.

3.1.5. Preparation of the flood potential index model map. All thematic layers were
aggregated in the GIS environment using WLC method
based on equation (4).
Subsequently, the FHPI was obtained for all the pixels within the study area. In
other words, the FHPI was obtained for each pixel and produced map was classified
based on equal interval method as: <0.1 (low), 0.1
0.2 (moderate), 0.2
0.3 (high)
and >0.3 (very high).

3.2. Performing the hydraulic simulation

Hydraulic modelling was used to simulate inundated areas (flood predicted map),
compare it with, and in fact validate, the accuracy of the flood hazard map of
MCDA. Therefore, steady-flow simulations were conducted using version 4.1.0 of
the HEC-RAS hydraulic model, developed by US Army Corps of Engineers (HEC
2001).
The cross-sectional geometry of the channel, river system schematics, reach
lengths, steady-flow input and Manning’s coefficient
the basic data requirements
for water surface simulations
were prepared to run the HEC-RAS. First, the cross
sections were extracted from the DEM using HEC-GeoRAS (ArcGIS extension
designed to extract geometry data for use within HEC-RAS) and then imported into
HEC-RAS software. Moreover, cross-sectional quality was checked on the geometric
data to make sure that no erroneous information was imported. Some of the cross
sections were edited, where found necessary, using graphical cross section editor. In
this study, 19 cross sections were considered. Bordbar et al. (2012) assessed the Man-
ning’s roughness coefficients of the Bashar River using the HEC-RAS and MIKE11
models. The Manning’s roughness coefficients of the Bashar River for HEC-RAS
0.052 were suggested. This value has been calibrated through comparison of the
 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1007

HEC-RAS water level for different discharge values against the available rating
curve data. Moreover, Peiro et al. (2002) studied the status of bed river sediment
using numerical model HEC-RAS. Therefore, according to the previous studies and
available data (data from hydrometric stations), the HEC-RAS model was cali-
brated. For the assessment of property damage caused by a flood, a flood depth map
and a flood extent map must be prepared (Sande et al. 2003).

3.2.1. Estimation of the flood discharge for different return periods. In the current
study, annual maximum values of daily peak flows were used for the period
1970
2009 at the Bashar River. In order to analyze the flood frequency, SMADA
6.43 software (Stormwater Management and Design Aid, developed by UCF Civil
Engineering) was used. Among different distributions used in this study, the best fit-
ting distribution was reached by using the Log Pearson Type III (LP3) distribution
for hydrometric data of the Shah-Mokhtar station. Hence, the maximum water level
was estimate for flood of 50-year and 100-year return periods and assigned at
upstream and at downstream as boundary conditions.
After dealing with the geometric data, flow data were imported into the HEC-RAS
to simulate the model for the discharge values of 50-year and 100-year return periods
estimated using SMADA. With this consideration, inundation simulation (extent
and depth of flood) was calculated with 30-m resolution. Then, these data were
exported to the ArcGIS 10.2 for further analysis.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Preparation of FHPI map
The pairwise comparison matrix and normalized weight
according to principle
eigenvectors
were considered for parameters using Saaty’s AHP, and are shown in
Table 2. Also, ranks (R) assigned to different classes of the individual parameter and
their normalized ranks (NR) were presented in Table 3. The FHPI map using WLC
technique was prepared (figures 4 and 5).

4.2. Assessment of the accuracy of FHPI map

The HEC-RAS model was used to simulate the flood depth and extend areas for
peak discharges of 1510 (50-year return period) and 1670 (100-year return period)

Table 2. Pair-wise comparison matrix and normalized weights for parameters.

Parameters

Parameters S A D LULC Normalized weight

S 1 2 4 2 0.138
A 1 3 3 0.232
D 1 5 0.546
LULC 1 0.084

Consistency ratio (CR) D 0.02.

1008 O. Rahmati et al.

Table 3. Assigned and normalized ranks for individual classes.

Parameters Class Assigned rank (R) Normalized rank (NR)

Slope 0
10 5 5/15 D 0.33

10
20 4 4/15 D 0.27
20
30 3 3/15 D 0.20
30
50 2 2/15 D 0.13
>50 1 1/15 D 0.07
Total 15

Distance 0
100 7 0.32

100
200 6 0.27
200
300 4 0.18
300
400 3 0.14
400
500 2 0.09

Land use/cover
River zone 6 0.32
Residential areas and roads 5 0.26
Bare lands 4 0.21
Cropland 3 0.16
Forest 1 0.05

Altitude <1700 6 0.38

1700
1725 4 0.25
1725
1750 3 0.19
1750
1775 2 0.13
>1775 1 0.06

m3/s
obtained from Log Pearson Type III (LP3) distribution
and inundation
prone areas were identified. The comparison of the FHPI model map with floodwater
extent and floodwater depth maps is essential. It is notable that the authors were not
able to compute flood depth using the MCDA technique.

4.2.1. Analysis of floodwater extent. Maps of the inundated areas for these simula-
tions (50-year and 100-year return periods) are shown in figure 4. The HEC-RAS
model predicted that a total of 138 ha area will be inundated by 100-year discharge.
In figure 4(a) and 4(b), the locations that are represented by blue colour are the part
of study area that will be under water at discharges of 1510 and 1670 m3/s. The inun-
dated areas that appear in figure 4 were considered as the potentially damaged areas.
Figure 4 shows that from upstream to downstream, endangered areas in high class
increases, while that in medium class decreases. It happens because of two reasons:
(1) based on the slope map (figure 3(a)), from upstream to downstream, land’s slope
generally increases, hence flood water concentrates on a smaller area in the down-
stream compared to the upstream, and therefore downstream can become more
 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1009

Figure 4. Total inundated (from hydraulic model) and endangered (based on MCDA) areas:
(a) 50-year return period, and (b) 100-year return period discharge. To view this figure in
colour, please see the online version of the journal.
1010 O. Rahmati et al.

Figure 5. Simulated flood depth maps: (a) 50-year return period, and (b) 100-year return
period.
 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1011

hazardous; (2) in the upstream, there are some natural obstructions (relief) that cause
river division and water spreading, which means high-class area changes to medium
class, which is less hazardous.
Also, one can see in the topography map that almost in all right-side areas of the
river, the elevation is higher than the left side; as a consequence, low hazardous area
(in terms of severity) in the right side of the river is less than the left side which is
reflected in the flood hazard map very well.
According to figure 4(a) and 4(b), flood water extends (in terms of inundation) into
the river sides, more in the upstream than in the downstream as a consequence of
river sides with lower slope and velocity.
It is obvious that inundation area in 100-year return period is more than that in 50-
year return period, but comparing them together shows that, in the upstream the dif-
ference is more, and some patches that are not inundated in 50-year return period
are disappeared in 100-year flood.

4.2.2. Analysis of floodwater depth. Hydrodynamic simulation was used to esti-

mate the floodwater depth. It is very difficult to obtain flood depth information from
field working. However, in this study, we used the techniques suggested by Dewan
et al. (2007) and Ghanbarpour et al. (2013) to estimate floodwater depth. The flood
depth map was the essential component for the categorization of the river flood haz-
ard mapping in the Bashar River basin. Hence, a triangular irregular network (TIN)
mesh of the water surface based on the hydraulic simulation data was prepared in
HEC-GeoRAS extension. The difference between the water surface TIN and the
DEM provides a flood depth map. Figure 5 shows spatially flood depths for the 50-
and 100-year return periods simulated using HEC-RAS and GIS.
Table 4 shows a comparison of the inundation areas (ha) and spatially flood depth
(m) for the 50- and 100-year floods. According to figure 5, usually where the maxi-
mum curvature of the river bend exists, the water depth is higher, while in the
upstream water depth is low. Moreover, figure 5(a) and 5(b) shows that the depths as
well as the inundation areas in 50- and 100-year floods calculated using HEC-RAS
will not reach high enough to meet the low flood hazard zone extracted based on
MCDA, which can be interpreted that a low flood hazard zone based on the knowl-
edge-driven GIS model is the zone that will be inundated when a flood greater than a
100-year return period occurs.
Details of comparisons of the inundation areas (ha) based on flood depths in 50-
and 100-year floods are given in Table 4. This table indicates that the inundated area

Table 4. Comparisons of inundation areas (ha) based on flood depth in 50- and 100-year
floods.

Return period (year) Flood depth (m) Inundation area (ha)

50 <2.5 87.67
2.5
5 122.12

100 <2.5 15.64

2.5
5 32.73
>5 89.81
1012 O. Rahmati et al.

for 50-year flood with a depth less than 2.5 m is about six times of the inundated area
of 100-year flood; moreover, while the maximum depth for 50-year flood is 5, the
flooding area of 100-year flood with a depth higher than 5 m is 89.81 ha.
It is obvious that the methods of MCDA and HEC-RAS may have resources of
uncertainty that can be reflected to the resulted maps (Koivum€aki et al. 2010). In the
applied hydraulic model, the main parameter that may cause error in the final map is
Manning’s roughness coefficients. In this work, the obtained flood depths were cali-
brated against the rating curves in the upstream and downstream, and the right val-
ues of Manning’s roughness coefficients were chosen. In the MCDA, assigning
weights to the criteria/factors by the experts can cause bias in the final maps,
although sensitivity analysis can be performed on the results to explore how changes
in the weights would influence the preference order of the criteria or which criterion
meaningfully influences the results. Hence, in this research, by assuming the reliabil-
ity of the inundation map of the hydraulic model, the flood hazard zoning map of
MCDA is rather reliable.

5. Conclusions
In this research, flood hazard potential zones map was provided using a knowledge-
driven expert-based GIS model for some part of the Bashar River downstream of
Yasooj city in Iran. Four parameters, including distance to the discharge channels,
land use, elevation and land slope, were presented to the experts to paired compari-
son and assigning weight as the main criteria/factors for flood hazard mapping in the
framework of GIS. The HEC-RAS hydraulic model was used to simulate inundated
areas using cross-sectional geometry of the channel, Manning’s roughness coeffi-
cients and peak discharges as the model input. The output of HEC-RAS and DEM
were used to provide inundated maps of 50- and 100-year floods. Both flood hazard
zoning map and inundation map of 50- and 100-year floods were overlaid and com-
pared. If it can be assumed that the inundation map is reliable, the result of this
research showed that the flood hazard zoning map of MCDA is rather reliable.
Hence, the AHP and GIS technique are promising of making rather reliable predic-
tion for flood extent and can be suggested for assessment of the flood hazard poten-
tial, specifically in no-data regions.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to two anonymous reviewers and editorial comment by Dr Ramesh Singh “Editor-in-
Chief” for their valuable comments in the earlier version which helped us to improve the qual-
ity of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Hossein Zeinivand http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3132-9194
 Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran 1013

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