Assessment of Flood Damage on Humans, Infrastructure,

and Agriculture in the Ghamsar Watershed

Using HEC-FIA Software
Fahimeh Mokhtari 1; Saeid Soltani 2; and Seyed Alireza Mousavi 3
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Abstract: Floods, as one of the most catastrophic events among the wide variety of natural hazards, impose considerable damage to humans,
infrastructure, and industrial and agricultural sites. To identify flooding-prone areas and having knowledge on occurrence probability or
return period of flood events can be promising for planning and alleviation of damage caused by this natural phenomenon. This paper seeks
to assess flood risk in the Ghamsar watershed, so cross sections were plotted using a digital elevation model (DEM) and stream geometric data
in the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Geospatial Processing Data for River Analysis System (HEC-GeoRAS). The output was transferred
to the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) and flooded area with different return periods with data created by
an unstable simulation in the Ghamsar River. These results together with field data collected from region were entered into the Hydrologic
Engineering Center’s Flood Impact Analysis (HEC-FIA) software and flood damage was estimated. Results showed that 3.23 ha of cultivated
lands will be subject to damage ($378,358.99). As for infrastructure, a number of 36 buildings units surrounding the river will be subject
to floods and at the same time the flood causes some causalities. The results of this research can be used in development plans and the
construction sector in order to alleviate damage caused by floods in urban and rural areas and floodplains and for river bank conservation.
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000248. © 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Geospatial Processing Data for River Analysis System (HEC-GeoRAS); Hydrologic
Engineering Center’s River Analysis System (HEC-RAS); Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Flood Impact Analysis (HEC-FIA); Structural
damage; Agricultural damage; Ghamsar watershed.

Introduction methods of damage assessment. Yang and Tsai (2000) developed

Every day many simple disasters occur around the world. Simple
disasters are catastrophes caused by hazardous natural phenomena
such as floods, droughts, earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes, or
volcanos that cause major human and financial losses, but in areas
where human interests are not exposed these events are not recog-
nized as simple disasters (Sanders 2007). Huang et al. (2008) as-
sessed economic damage caused by floods using data from flood
events in 1998 in China. In this year 180 million people in China’s
29 provinces were affected by floods. They randomly selected
11,521 families and valuated the damage to their assets, income
before and after the flood, and increased treatment cost, and ulti-
mately studied the relationship between damage and flood type,
flood duration, and flood frequency. Omidvar and Shamsodini
(2006), in research to assess the direct and indirect financial dam-
age of floods using Hazards U.S. Multi-Hazard (HAZUS-MH) soft-
ware, emphasized accuracy of software compared to manual
1 ferent parts of the field by a hydrological model and the damages
Postgraduate Student of Watershed Management, Dept. of Natural
Resources, Isfahan Univ. of Technology, 8415683111 Isfahan, Iran. E-mail:
fahimeh.mokhtari2009@yahoo.com
2
Associate Professor of Watershed Management, Dept. of Natural
Resources, Isfahan Univ. of Technology, 8415683111 Isfahan, Iran
(corresponding author). E-mail: ssoltani@cc.iut.ac.ir
3
Assistant Professor of Range Management, Dept. of Natural
Resources, Isfahan Univ. of Technology, 8415683111 Isfahan, Iran.
E-mail: sarmousavi@cc.iut.ac.ir
Note. This manuscript was submitted on July 25, 2016; approved on
December 8, 2016; published online on February 21, 2017. Discussion
period open until July 21, 2017; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Natural Hazards Review,
© ASCE, ISSN 1527-6988.
a model called geographic information system (GIS)–based flood
information system (GFIS) to simulate floodplains, calculations,
and representation of floods in Taiwan. Rather than simulating
floodplains, they used depth-damage curve to determine the
amount of damage. In this system, average annual flood damage
was calculated using 24-h precipitation possibility with return peri-
ods of 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 years. Yang et al. (2006)
developed a direct-processing approach to delineate the floodplain
east of Ottawa, and mapped floodplain zones of the South Nation
River system in two and three dimensions by integrating GIS and
the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System
(HEC-RAS). Jalalirad (2002) determined flood-prone areas in the
Tehran, Iran, urban watershed using the HEC-RAS model and drew
floodplain maps with different return periods and then flood dam-
age for various return periods were estimated.
In another study conducted to evaluate flood damage, construc-
tion, and agriculture, Dutta et al. (2003) estimated water depth in dif-
were calculated by combining the depth-damage and flood depth
maps. Sarhadi et al. (2012) created flood inundation maps of un-
gagged rivers in the Halilrud basin and Jiroft, Iran, with GIS tech-
niques and frequency analysis. Khalilizadeh et al. (2005) mapped
flood hazard for 10.5 km along the Ziarat River for flood management
in Gorgan, Iran, using the Atlanta Regional Commission Geographic
Information System (ARC-GIS) and HEC-RAS and in addition to
drawing flood hazard maps for different return periods, the study es-
timated flood damages. Results showed that the 50-year return period
is critical return period for the Gorgan, Iran, urban watershed. Finally,
by drawing depth-damage curves, it was concluded that higher return
periods will lead to more flood depth, flooded land area, and flood

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 damage. In light of the previous research, the present research aims to
integrate the HEC-RAS hydraulic model with Arc-GIS through the
Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Geospatial Processing Data for
River Analysis System (HEC-GeoRAS) extension in order to simulate
hydraulic parameters of Bonrood River in Ghamsar county and then
assess flood damage to human, infrastructure, and agriculture using
Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Flood Impact Analysis (HEC-FIA)
software. The objectives of this study are to estimate human and fi-
nancial losses due flood events of 2007 in Ghamsar watershed, pre-
pare inundation maps with different return periods using HEC-RAS
and HEC-GeoRAS software, and estimate damages in each flood by
HEC-FIA software.
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Background
Among the wide range of natural hazards, floods perhaps serve as
the most destructive, incurring a lot of damage to humans, plants,
industrial facilities, and agricultural lands. To identify flooding-
prone areas and having knowledge on occurrence probability or
return period of flood events can be promising for planning and
alleviation of damage caused by this natural phenomenon (Afshar
1985). Annually, floods lead to 26,000 casualties and affect 75 mil-
lion people in an adverse manner. Flood damage has grown increas-
ingly during recent decades, which increased frequency and
severity of floods, in turn leading to growing concerns of the
international community to reduce the deaths and financial losses
from floods (Smith 2001; Sanders 2007).
Detection of areas characterized by a high risk and potential ex-
posure to flash floods can assist policymakers in strategic planning
of flood-damage alleviation through water control structures, deci- Fig. 1. Location of study area at Namak Lake Basin of Iran
sion making for flood insurance, and facilitating preparation
against flooding emergency events (Smith 2001).
where Qmax = instantaneous peak discharge (m3 =s); Q = daily peak
Materials and Methods flow (m3 =s); A = basin area (km2 ); Q1 = daily average flow before
peak (m3 =s); Q2 = daily peak flow; and Q3 = daily average flow
Study Area after peak (m3 =s).

The Ghamsar watershed basin with an area of 10,605 ha is a

small part of the great basin of Namak Lake, Qom, Iran. The area
is limited to the Ghohrood basin to the west, Jusheghan to the
south, the Kashan plain located 15 km southeast of Kashan, Iran,
to the north. Its geographic coordinates are 51°18′59″ to 51°26′58″ E
and 33°38′6″ to 33°46′19″ N (Fig. 1). The Ghamsar part of the river
is a tributary of Bonrood. The river passes from Ghamsar, Iran, to
the north and after crossing the border of Kashan, Iran, will end to
the southwest at Namak Lake.
Flood Frequency Analysis
Numerous distribution was used for flood frequency analysis.
Method of moments, maximum likelihood, and probability-weighted
moments are the most widely used to estimate the distribution quan-
tiles. One of the most complete methods to estimate the parameters is
maximum likelihood and because it provides the lowest sampling
variance of the estimated parameters, quantiles calculated in this
way are comparable to other methods, while the method of maximum

Instantaneous Peak Discharge

Because the information on maximum instantaneous peak dis- Table 1. Questionnaire Related to Building Information
charge does not allow for analyzing flood frequency for the study
Response
area, maximum daily discharge was converted to maximum instan-
taneous peak discharge using empirical methods [Eqs. (1)–(3)] (Fill Question 1 2 3
and Steiner 2003; Fuller 1914; Sangal 1983) Number of people above 65 years old in the building — — — —
Number of people in the building at night — — — —
Qmax ¼ Qð1 þ 2.66A − 0.3Þ ð1Þ Number of people in the building during the day — — — —
Car price — — — —
Qmax ¼ ð4Q2 − Q1 − Q3 Þ=2 ð2Þ Number of cars — — — —
Price of the contents inside the building — — — —
Building price — — — —
Qmax ¼ ½0.8Q2 þ 0.25ðQ1 þ Q3 Þ=K Does building have a basement? — — — —
Foundation elevation — — — —
K ¼ 0.9123X þ 0.36 Elevation from first floor — — — —
X ¼ ðQ1 þ Q3 Þ=2Q2 ð3Þ Number of floors — — — —

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 Table 2. Questionnaire Related to Agricultural Information Table 5. P-Value Resulting from Flood Frequency Analysis Process in
Ghamsar Station
Response
Standard Chi-square Kolmogorov-Smirnov Peak flow
Question 1 2 3
error test test estimation method
Waterlogging duration until 100% damage — — — —
0.08 0.693 0.259 Fuller
Soil desiccation duration after flood — — — —
0.06 0.728 0.825 Senegal
Last harvest date to avoid damage — — — —
0.06 0.768 0.947 Fill-Steiner
Last planting date with crop loss — — — —
Last planting date without crop loss — — — — Note: Confidence level = 5%.
Last planting date without crop loss — — — —
First planting date — — — —
Cost for harvesting per hectare — — — —
Crop price per hectare — — — — flow were carried out with different return periods. To also simulate
Yield per hectare — — — — unsteady flow in river, the data of daily flood events in the Ghamsar
Area (ha) — — — — watershed were used. The most important hydraulic characteristics
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Crop type — — — —
likelihood has an error in the estimation of small samples (Overton
2005). In the method of probability-weighted moments, parameter
estimation with the maximum likelihood method is comparable in
some cases and is more accurate (Hosking 1990).
The linear-moment method is more convenient and much easier
than the probability-weighted moments, because they can be directly
interpreted as measures of scale and shape of probability distributions
and they are similar and comparable to the conventional moments,
but this method is not an appropriate method for the distribution of
many parameters, samples with low numbers, or outliers in the
sample. This method has a lower quality than other methods such
as moments of weightlessness (Rao and Hamed 1999).
The most important part in flood frequency analysis is to esti-
mate flood discharge. To analyze flood frequency and estimate the
distribution quintiles, the method of moments, maximum likeli-
hood, and weighted moments are more likely to be used. Frequency
analysis was performed in this study using the probability-weighted
moments method (Greenwood et al. 1979).
In this study, according to the goodness-of-fit test results
(chi-square and Kolmogorov-Smirnov) and the standard error, the
probability-weighted moments method is better than other methods.
Because the log-Pearson Type 3 (LP3) is a kind of extreme value
distribution, goodness-of-fit test results (using the Kolmogorov-
Smirnov and chi-square tests) showed that this distribution is suit-
able for analyzing the prevalence rates peak.
Hydraulic Characterization of the Study Area
To simulate the hydraulic behavior of the river for studying the bor-
ders of the hydraulic river bed, hydraulic calculations of steady
of the river to determine other factors such as depth and speed of
flow include flow discharge, Manning roughness coefficient,
geometry, and cross sections of the river. These specifications may
differ between natural and existing conditions, and in this case it is
necessary to examine both natural and available conditions. Flood
discharge in natural and existing conditions is the same in the study
area due to lack of effective structures on the flow rate.
Manning Roughness Coefficient
A river may have a wide range of roughness coefficients. Manning
roughness coefficient in the river was based on field observations,
calculations, and experimental tables provided by Cowan (1956)
and according to the conditions of the river at different sections,
the effect of other factors such as the degree of roughness, ob-
stacles, vegetation, and pathway form was modified as follows
(Alamilla 2001; Coon 1995):
n ¼ ðn0 þ n1 þ n2 þ n3 þ n4 Þn5 ð4Þ
where n = combined Manning roughness coefficient; n0 = Manning
roughness coefficient for bed gravels; n1 = Manning coefficient re-
lated to river bed roughness; n2 = Manning coefficient related to
changes in river section; n3 = Manning coefficient related to bar-
riers in river path; and n4 and n5 = Manning roughness coefficient
on vegetation and river curvature, respectively.
Channel Section Geometry under Existing and Natural
Conditions
Channel geometry serves as the first and most basic information
needed to simulate the river hydraulics. In fact, the cross section
of the river determines hydraulic parameters such as speed, depth,
and surface of flooding when a flow enters the river. Current

Table 3. HEC-FIA Model Data Used to Calculate Agricultural Damage for Plums, Walnuts, and Apples
Crop Yield per hectare Unit Unit price ($) Harvest cost ($) Crop loss function Seasonal data
Plum 37.1 ton 1,333,333.0 4,856,333.0 Fruits and nuts Enter
Walnut 12.4 ton 1.2 × 107 3,399,433.5 Walnuts Enter
Apple 27.2 ton 1,500,000.0 24,281,666 Fruits and nuts Enter

Table 4. Flood Discharge with Different Return Periods in Ghamsar Basin (m3 =s)
1,000 years 500 years 200 years 100 years 50 years 10 years 5 years 2 years Best fit distribution Peak flow estimation method
98.1 59.0 29.7 17.4 10.0 2.53 1.29 0.45 LP3 Fuller
201 105 44.5 23.0 11.7 2.26 1.04 0.32 LP3 Senegal
231 117 47.8 24.0 11.9 2.18 0.99 0.3 LP3 Fill-Steiner

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Fig. 2. Extracting cross sections parameters using a triangulated irregular network

cross section geometry was prepared using the map provided by the
Regional Water Organization in Isfahan Province with a scale
of 1:2,000. For this purpose, the maps were imported into the
Arc-GIS 9.3 environment and the areas such as bridges and cross
sections were extracted. Finally, to obtain other flow characteris-
tics, the map was imported into HEC-RAS using the HEC-GeoRAS
extension. After preparing the geometry of the river in the existing
circumstances, it is necessary to identify the affected areas by
human manipulation to simulate the initial geometry or the natural
section of the river. A total of seven bridges are constructed along
the area whose hydraulic conditions were simulated by the
HEC-RAS model.
information on buildings and agricultural land use as well other
information, including a raster file of inundation, impact area, com-
putation points, and crop loss function. Table 1 gives the questions
regarding building information to calculate structural damages in
HEC-FIA software, respectively.
Table 2 gives the questions related to agricultural land use,
and the data for the three crops around the river can be found
in Table 3.

Flow Hydraulic Modeling

In order to model the flow in a river channel, it is necessary to
introduce boundary conditions into the model. In the HEC-RAS
hydraulic model, boundary conditions include upstream and down-
stream boundary conditions, which can include discharge and
water stage or water gradient or critical depth. The discharge stage
curve can also be defined as upstream and downstream boundary
conditions. Here, a boundary condition of critical depth was used
due to flash floods in the region and to determine the boundary of
floods with high return periods (500 and 1,000 years).

Simulation of Unsteady Flow in River

In order to simulate the unsteady flow in HEC-RAS and to obtain
the simulated flow file, the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s Data
Storage System (HEC-DSS) must first be entered into HEC-FIA;
discharge data for the flood occurring at intervals of 1 h were en-
tered into the software as inputs, and boundary conditions were
determined. In order to start the simulation of the unsteady flow,
the time of the start and end of the flood should be entered into a
flow hydrograph as well as simulation intervals that may vary from
1 s to 1 day. Finally, outputs were entered into the HEC-FIA model
for damage estimation.

Obtaining Flood Damage

The simulation was conducted in HEC-FIA using geometric infor-
Fig. 3. Simulated profiles in a cross section
mation such as stream alignment and digital elevation model, and

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 Information Required to Calculate the Damages
For simulation and calculation of human or agricultural damage,
different information is required, and according to available data,
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this information is imported from HEC-RAS, HEC-GeoRAS and
HEC-DSS. For human damage, the HEC-DSS files created through
the simulation of the unsteady flow in HEC-RAS model and cross
sections of the shape file were entered to HEC-FIA, and for the

Fig. 4. Three-dimensional view of Bonrood River in a steady flow state

Fig. 5. Flooded area, by flood with 1,000-year return period in Bonrood River

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 damage to the agricultural sector the date and time of flow peak in
the simulated flood event was defined. The results of this software
are output tables that calculate flood damage to the agriculture and
construction sectors, separately.
Results and Discussion
Because LP3 distribution is used for maximum values, it was used
for flood frequency analysis and discharge estimation with different
return periods. In estimating distribution quintiles, the methods
of moments, maximum likelihood, and probability-weighted mo-
ments are more likely to be used, which were also used in this study
to estimate the distribution parameters, from which the probability-
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Fill-Steiner method was more consistent with the characteristics
of the Ghamsar basin. In fact, discharge obtained via the Fill-
Steiner method was more consistent with the observed maximum
discharge in the flood hydrograph seen in this area on July 27,
2007. Table 4 gives the results of discharge amounts with different
return periods.
Table 5 gives the parameters of frequency analysis that are cal-
culated using flood frequency analysis method of Rao and Hamed
(1999). The standard error for all three methods was trivial. Regard-
ing the table, because the P-value of the FillSteiner method in both
the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and chi-square tests was more than the
Fuller and Senegal method, the Fill-Steiner method was used to
transform maximum daily flow to instantaneous maximum dis-
charge and discharge frequency analysis.

weighted moments method was more likely to produce logical To obtain the river geometry to be entered to the hydraulic
results considering Kolmogorov-Smirnov, chi-square, and visual model for simulation, it is necessary to create some vector files in
techniques in the Ghamsar basin. Among the three experimental order to determine the center line of the water, river bank, cross
methods to estimate the maximum instantaneous discharge, the sections, and flow pathway in rivers (Fig. 2).

Table 6. Output of HEC-RAS Unsteady Flow (HEC-DSS)

Cross section Simulation time Observed
Filter Name of reach number Type of discharge Start date interval (h) data
957 Bonrood upper reach 2,436 FLOW-CUM June 1, 2007 1 44
958 Bonrood upper reach 2,436 STAGE June 1, 2008 1 44
929 Bonrood upper reach 2,449 FLOW June 1, 2009 1 44
960 Bonrood upper reach 2,449 FLOW-CUM June 1, 2010 1 44
961 Bonrood upper reach 2,449 STAGE June 1, 2011 1 44
962 Bonrood upper reach 2,485 FLOW June 1 ,2012 1 44
963 Bonrood upper reach 2,485 FLOW-CUM June 1, 2013 1 44
964 Bonrood upper reach 2,485 STAGE June 1, 2014 1 44
Note: FLOW = Flow; FLOW-CUM = Flow + upstream flow; STAGE = Height of flow.

Fig. 6. Longitudinal profile of river in unsteady flow state

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Fig. 7. General view of the impact area, computation points, and stream alignment in HEC-FIA; dark polygons represent agricultural lands
Having completed the input data of the HEC-RAS file, the
hydraulic model of intervals was performed for hypercritical flow
regime and water surface profile computations. Water level simu-
lation profiles usually follow the river bed profile and therefore can
be homogenous with normal height or close to it in some river
intervals (Fig. 3). Parameters such as the upper width of flood, hy-
draulic depth, water surface area, and flow volume and power (in
terms of N=m · s) can also be calculated for different intervals.
The results of the HEC-RAS hydraulic model were stored in a
proper GIS format (Fig. 4). This information is then processed
to raster and vector formats in HEC-GeoRAS through postprocess-
ing of data into the flooded areas around the river with different
return periods (2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1,000 years).
Because the one of observed floods has been 1,000-year return
periods, therefore flood inundation of its was simulated in Ghamsar
watershed (Fig. 5).
One of the outputs of simulation of unsteady flow is a scale-
discharge hydrograph for river intervals. After simulation, the out-
put of the model was obtained as a HEC-DSS file for all sections
(Table 6). Finally, the longitudinal profile of the river was prepared
as a result of unsteady flow simulations in the river (Fig. 6).
After entering the data and information required for simulation
into the HEC-FIA software, flood damage was calculated. Fig. 7
shows an overview of land use, computation points, central align-
ment of flow, and the affected area.
This model shows results in a tabular manner for each impact
area (Table 7). This table contains the flood damage to crops in the
region (plum, apple, and walnut) and the flooded area. According
to the results, 3.23 ha of land in the Ghamsar watershed are affected
by flood and the damage is estimated to be approximately
$378,358.99 (based on the 2007 flood). The estimated damage
is based on the values that were collected through field interviews
with the local community. This information was also cross-checked
by the Department of Agriculture in Kashan County to ensure its
reliability.
Based on the findings, Table 8 shows the number of flooded
buildings in different classes. Given the considered flood for sim-
ulation (2007 flood event) and current land use types, 23 residential
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buildings and 13 commercial buildings, for a total of 36 buildings
around the river are subjected to inundation. Estimated human
damages are also described in Fig. 8, where:
• “PAR” is the population at risk.
• “Received Warning” is the number of people who receive warn-
ing messages [the default warning system of the software is a
siren warning system, which was used in this study; other warn-
ing systems available in the software include radio, and auto-
matic telephone and emergency broadcast systems (EBS), as
well as combinations of these systems].
• “Mobilized” is the number of people who are mobilized after
receiving the warning message. Of these, those who evacuated
from the location of danger zone are called the “Total Cleared.”
The numbers of people who start to exit at the beginning of
inundation are shown as the “Started Inundated.” “Caught” de-
fines the people who start exiting when the flood begins, but
they are not able to leave danger zone before full inundation.
Some of them are “survived” and some lose their lives (“life
loss”). People who receive warning messages but do not exit
from danger zone are determined as “Not Mobilized.”
• “Not Mobilized” is the number of people who do not receive a
warning message and have survived or lose their lives.
Table 7. Agricultural Damage around Bonrood Ghamsar River Caused by
2007 Flood Event
Content Amount of damage (quantity and unit)
Inundation area 3.23 ha
Damage $378,358.99
Table 8. Number of Inundated Buildings around Bonrood Ghamsar River
Type of flooded building Number of inundated buildings
Commercial 13
Residental 23
Total number of buildings inundated 36
Nat. Hazards Rev.
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Fig. 8. Human damage caused by 2007 flood event in Ghamsar watershed

• The rest of this figure represents the initial state for simulation
condition that shows how many people who received the mes-
sage evacuated the area and how many have lost their lives.
Based on the findings, in the Ghamsar watershed, 174 and 135
people younger than 65 years old are at risk of flooding during the
day and night, respectively, and 25 and 11 people older than
65 years are at risk of flooding during the day and night, respec-
tively. Among people at risk of flooding and under 65 years old,
164 people (94%) during the day and 126 people (approximately
93%) during the night do not receive a warning message. Among
the people at high risk and older than 65 years, 24 people (96%)
during the day and 10 people (91%) during the night do not receive
a warning message.
The accuracy of the results are checked by comparing the re-
sponses of public information as well as regional organizations like
the municipality, housing authority, and agricultural organization.
Conclusion
Flood events cause substantial damage to farms, agricultural lands,
roads, dams, bridges, and roads each year and in some cases cause
the death of people and livestock, resulting in destruction of the
social structure of many societies as well as financial and life
losses. To identify flooding-prone areas and having knowledge
of occurrence probability or return period of flood events can be
promising for planning and alleviation of damage caused by this
natural phenomenon. Results show that land use changes and in-
creasing unplanned construction along the river and also limitation
of the river can increase the peak discharge of river floods as well as
depth and surface of flooded area, which confirms the results of
Leopold (1968), Novotny and Olem (1994), and Alamilla (2001).
The results of simulation of casualties indicate that buildings are
scattered in Ghamsar, Iran, and the warning systems adopted in this
study are not sufficient because more than 90% of people do not
receive the warning. Therefore, in such areas with scattered build-
ings, it would be preferred to define other alarm systems such as an
automatic telephone system to alleviate human damage caused by
floods.
In most studies on flood damage estimation, damage mainly has
been studied separately for different sectors (e.g., agriculture) and
it has not been possible to assess agricultural, construction, and
human damage at the same time; however, HEC-FIA can simulta-
neously estimate damage in different sectors. For example,

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 Ganjinoroozi and Shokoohi (2013) evaluated agricultural damage
in the Azarrood basin by introducing agricultural damage predic-
tion model and damage calculation that was only focused on rice.
Another advantage of this software is quick and accurate calcula-
tion, the ability to calculate future damages (just by updating the
land use map and information on the economic value of land use
types) and evaluation of the prewarning system efficiency and
watershed management plans performance. Its disadvantage is that
it cannot be used to calculate the damages incurred by rangelands,
livestock, soil, habitats, and infrastructures, including destruction
of roads and human losses on the pathways. This is especially
important because the natural ecosystems around streams, such
as rangelands, have multiple functions like carbon sequestration,
oxygen production, fodder production, and water and soil
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conservation, and each of these functions is of a specific economic
value. Attempts to economically valuate these functions and con-
sider these values in damage estimation studies will contribute to
highlighting the economic importance of flood damages.
The limitations of this study are a lack of internal resources and
the lack of similar studies in the study area, lack of sufficient in-
formation and statistics relating to the floods that occurred, there
being only one hydrometric station in the basin, and requiring very
detailed maps of land use and triangulated irregular network (TIN).
References
Afshar, A. (1985). Engineering hydrology, Collegiate Publication Center,
Tehran, Iran.
Alamilla, S. (2001). “GIS based approach to floodplain delineation and
flood risk estimation applied to the Oak Creek watershed.” M.S. thesis,
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