Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838

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Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Research article

Novel integrated modelling based on multiplicative long short-term

memory (mLSTM) deep learning model and ensemble multi-criteria
decision making (MCDM) models for mapping flood risk
Aliakbar Mohammadifar a, Hamid Gholami a, *, Shahram Golzari b, c
a
Department of Natural Resources Engineering, University of Hormozgan, Bandar-Abbas, Hormozgan, Iran
b
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Hormozgan, Bandar-Abbas, Hormozgan, Iran
c
Deep Learning Research Group, University of Hormozgan, Bandar-Abbas, Hormozgan, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Jason Michael Evans Flood risk assessment is a key step in flood management and mitigation, and flood risk maps provide a quan­
titative measure of flood risk. Therefore, integration of deep learning – an updated version of machine learning
Keywords: techniques – and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) models can generate high-resolution flood risk maps. In
Deep learning this study, a novel integrated approach has been developed based on multiplicative long short-term memory
Feature selection
(mLSTM) deep learning models and an MCDM ensemble model to map flood risk in the Minab-Shamil plain,
Flood risk map
southern Iran. A flood hazard map generated by the mLSTM model is based on nine critical features selected by
CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble
Iran GrootCV (distance to the river, vegetation cover, variables extracted from DEM (digital elevation model) and
river density) and a flood inventory map (70% and 30% data were randomly selected as training and test
datasets, respectively). The values of all criteria used to assess model accuracy performance (except Cohens
kappa for train dataset = 86, and for test dataset = 84) achieved values greater than 90, which indicates that the
mLSTM model performed very well for the generation of a spatial flood hazard map. According to the spatial
flood hazard map produced by mLSTM, the very low, low, moderate, high and very high classes cover 26%,
35.3%, 20.5%, 11.2% and 7% of the total area, respectively. Flood vulnerability maps were produced by the
combinative distance-based assessment (CODAS), the evaluation based on distance from average solution
(EDAS), and the multi-objective optimization on the basis of simple ratio analysis (MOOSRA), and then validated
by Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (SRC). Based on the SRC, the three models CODAS, EDAS, and
MOOSRA showed high-ranking correlations with each other, and all three models were then used in the
ensemble process. According to the CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble model, 21.5%, 34.2%, 23.7%, 13%, and
7.6% of the total area were classified as having a very low to very high flood vulnerability, respectively. Finally, a
flood risk map was generated by the combination of flood hazard and vulnerability maps produced by the
mLSTM and MCDM ensemble model. According to the flood risk map, 27.4%, 34.3%, 14.8%, 15.7%, and 7.8% of
the total area were classified as having a very low, low, moderate, high, and very high flood risk, respectively.
Overall, the integration of mLSTM and the MCDM ensemble is a promising tool for generating precise flood risk
maps and provides a useful reference for flood risk management.

1. Introduction 2007; Ekwueme and Agunwamba, 2021). Annually, 21 million people

Floods – as natural multidimensional hydrological hazard phenom­
ena (Tsakiris et al., 2015) – result from heavy rainfall in combination
with complex urban infrastructure, agricultural practices, roads, reser­
voirs, human dwelling habits, and increasing sea-level rise, thereby
causing land instability such as subsidence and soil erosion (Parry et al.,
are impacted by floods worldwide, this being expected to reach fiftyfour
million by 2030 (Kundzewicz, 2002). Although it is impossible to
minimize flood risk in a river catchment to zero, it is of utmost impor­
tance to decrease the consequences of flood hazards to a minimum.
Flood assessment is necessary for a successful management of such
events. It aims at identifying the areas of highest risk and at mitigating

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hgholami@hormozgan.ac.ir (H. Gholami).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118838
Received 23 June 2023; Received in revised form 30 July 2023; Accepted 14 August 2023
Available online 16 August 2023
0301-4797/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Mohammadifar et al.
its detrimental economic, social, and environmental consequences. Due
to recent advancements in computer science, many ML algorithms have
been employed for flood assessment in recent years (Chen et al., 2021;
Ekwueme, 2022). The application of computer-based learning algo­
rithms, especially deep learning (DL) models (e.g., graph convolutional
networks (GCN, Gholami et al., 2023), bidirectional gated recurrent unit
(BiGRU; Rezaei et al., 2023), stacking- and voting-based ensemble DL
(Mohammadifar et al., 2023), hybrid DL (Gholami and Mohammadifar,
2022), gcForest and bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM;
Gholami et al., 2021a), restricted Boltzmann machine (Gholami et al.,
2021b), and etc.), are being increasingly applied to the spatial modelling
of different environmental hazards (e.g., soil erosion by water and wind,
dust emissions, land subsidence, landslide, soil salinization), especially
flood hazard, vulnerability, and risk assessment (Costache et al., 2022b).
For example, some studies (e.g., Wu et al., 2020; Panahi et al., 2021;
Costache et al., 2022b) applied DL models (e.g., RNN, CNN, LSTM,
GBDT, and DBN) for the spatial and temporal prediction of a flood, its
depth and susceptibility.
MCDM is a helpful technique for solving sophisticated decision
challenges required for non-comparable criteria and data (Malczewski,
2006). Individual MCDM models (e.g., technique for order preference by
similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), fuzzy analytic hierarchy process
(FAHP), decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL),
elimination and choice expressing reality (ELECTRE), etc.) or their
combination with GIS, statistical methods and data mining models have
been used to assess different aspects of flood management (e.g., Arora
et al., 2021; Costache et al., 2020; Costache et al., 2022a,b; Arabameri
et al., 2019, 2020). However, so far – and based on our knowledge –
application of EDAS, MOOSRA, and CODAS have not previously been
reported. Therefore, in the present study, three MCDM models (e.g.,
EDAS, MOOSRA, and CODAS) for assessing flood vulnerability were
applied for the first time.
Fig. 1. Location of the study area with the flood inventory map indicating the spatial distribution of flood points in the region.
2
Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838
Iran experienced more than 3700 flood events over the past 60 years
(Watershed Department of Iran, 2002). Due to the increasing urbani­
zation rate (Yari et al., 2019), land use changes, climate change, and
reservoir mismanagement, such flood events have increasingly affected
local populations, causing economic losses of >1.7 billion $ US (Khos­
ravi et al., 2016; Norouzi and Taslimi, 2012).
In January 2022, the Hormozgan province of southern Iran experi­
enced heavy rainfalls, in the course of which Minab city located east of
the capital of Hormozgan province – Bandar Abbas – experienced two
destructive floods, one on 4 January and another on January 18, 2022.
Based on the records of the Minab meteorological station (with a mean
annual rainfall of 162 mm), the Minab River catchment, in which the
Esteghlal Dam is located, received more than 400 mm of rainfall in
January 2022 alone. The main consequences of the two flood events on
the Minab-Shamil plain were severe economic losses resulting from the
destruction of roads and bridges. Furthermore, intensified soil erosion in
the upstream watershed of the Minab River led to an increased sus­
pended sediment load in the river networks, urban flooding, and
impaired city services. In view of this situation, the prediction and
management of catastrophic flood events has become a high priority in
Iran.
To mitigate detrimental flood effects in the future, the main objec­
tives of this study are: (i) to map flood hazard spatially by means of the
mLSTM model, (ii) to map flood vulnerability by the CODAS-EDAS-
MOOSRA ensemble model, and (iii) to map flood risk by the mLSTM
and MCDM ensemble.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
The Minab-Shamil plain (27◦ to 28◦ N and 56◦ 20‘ to 57◦ 20‘ E) with
A. Mohammadifar et al.
an area of 4762 km2 is located on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf,
and in the eastern part of the Hormozgan province, southern Iran
(Fig. 1). Based on long-term data from the Minab meteorological station,
the mean annual precipitation is 162 mm, and the mean annual tem­
perature 26.9 ◦ C. The study area is the most fertile plain in the Hor­
mozgan province, and the dominant use of its land is for agricultural
production. Based on a digital elevation model (DEM), elevations range
from − 20 m (regions located along the northern coast of the Persian
Gulf) to 3120 m. The main river in the study area is the Minab with
perennial flow. The Minab Dam established on the Minab River supplies
domestic water to the Minab and Bandar Abbas cities, irrigation water,
artificial recharge of groundwater and flood mitigation.
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Mapping flood hazard by mLSTM
2.2.1.1. Flood hazard conditioning variables and its inventory map. The
variables used to assess flood hazard include a digital elevation model
(DEM), slope, topographic curvature, plan, profile, topographic wetness
index (TWI), distance to river, vertical distance to channel, river density,
topographic position index (TPI), stream power index (SPI), normalized
difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil adjusted vegetation index
(SAVI), land use, lithology, soil, and a flood inventory map. Shuttle
radar topography mission (SRTM) images with a resolution of 90 × 90 m
were downloaded from https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov, and then used to
generate the DEM. Based on the DEM, the slope generated by the spatial
analysis tool in the ArcGIS10.3 software package and six variables
consisting of topographic curvature, plan, profile, TWI, TPI, and SPI
were generated in the SAGA-GIS.
TWI = Ln (As/tanθ) (1)
2
where As and θ indicate the specific area (m ) and slope (degree),
respectively.
The variables related to the river (e.g., distance to the river, vertical
distance to channel, and river density) were generated by different
functions in Arc-hydro. For producing NDVI and SAVI, the Landsat im­
ages recorded on October 25, 2020 were downloaded, and then trans­
formed into a mosaic with the ENVI software. Three maps consisting of
land use, lithology, and soil were generated based on maps produced by
the Iran Forests, Rangelands, and Watershed Management Organization
(IFRWMO). All nine important features are presented in suppl. 1 and 2.
A flood inventory map (Fig. 1) – a map showing the spatial distri­
bution of floods in the study area – is essential for constructing predic­
tive models, and this map has a very strong influence on the accuracy of
the flood hazard map. It is a key step to explore the spatial relation
between flood occurrences and control variables. Here, a flood in­
ventory map was prepared based on a field survey, historical flood signs,
and a map produced by IFRWMO. For constructing the flood hazard
predictive model, we randomly selected 70% (92 flood points) and 30%
(39 flood points) of the data as training and test datasets, respectively.
2.2.1.2. Determining importance variables related to the flood hazard by
GrootCV. Feature selection is the process of reducing input data (Nilsson
et al., 2007) and represents an important step of building a predictive
model based on the machine learning algorithms (Tan and He, 2021).
Here, we apply GrootCV to select the most important variables con­
trolling the flood.
2.2.1.3. The mLSTM deep learning model for spatial flood assessment. The
LSTM network as a type of RNN has three gates consisting of input (i),
forget (f), and output (o) (Hochreiter and Schmidhuber, 1997; Krause
et al., 2017). mLSTM – a hybrid architecture – combines LSTM and
multiplicative RNN (mRNN) for sequence modeling (Krause et al., 2017;
Ma et al., 2021). The mRNN and LSTM architectures can be combined by
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Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838
adding connections from the mRNN’s intermediate state mt to each
gating unit in the LSTM, resulting in the following system:
mt = (Wmxxt) ʘ (Wmhht-1) (2)
̂ t = Whx xt + Whm mt
h (3)
it = σ (Wixxt + Wimmt) (4)
ot = σ (Woxxt + Wommt) (5)
ft = σ (Wfxxt + Wfmmt) (6)
where xt and ht-1 are the input layer and the previous hidden state,
respectively; σ is the logistic sigmoid function; h
̂ t indicates the input to
the next hidden state before any non-linear operation; it denotes the
input gate; ot and ft are the output gate and forget gate, respectively.
mLSTM is available in the github package Python. The structure of
our model has two layers consisting of mLSTM (with unit number = 128,
dropout = 0.2, and recurrent dropout = 0.2), and dense (with unit
number = 1, and the sigmoid activation function). At the model
compilation stage, the binary cross-entropy and accuracy were selected
as loss function and metrics, respectively. In comparison with the Ada­
max optimizer, the model with the Adam optimizer had higher accuracy.
At the fit stage, the model was tested with different epoch numbers (500,
700, and 1000) and batch sizes (10, 15, and 20), of which the model
with the batch size = 10 and epoch = 500 were the most accurate. The
structure of mLSTM is presented in Fig. 2.
Six criteria consisting of accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score,
Cohen’s kappa, and the receiver operating characteristic - area under
curve (ROC-AUC) were applied to assess the flood hazard map generated
by the mLSTM model.
2.2.2. Mapping flood vulnerability by MCDM
2.2.2.1. Flood vulnerability conditioning variables. The variables used to
map the flood vulnerability are: (1) The population density, villages, and
residential regions density (related data received from the Statistical
center of Iran), and then three layers consisting of the population den­
sity, villages, and residential area density were mapped in ArcGIS. (2)
Distance to roads (the newest data were downloaded from www.ope
nstreetmap.org), and then the “distance” function was applied in Arc­
GIS to calculate the distance to roads. (3) Distance to medical centers
(location of the medical centers was extracted from the OSM maps), and
then the “distance” function was applied in the ArcGIS to calculate the
distance to medical centers. (4) Distance to the livestock, tourism,
mineral, and industrial centers (these layers were generated based on
the Land Management studies for Hormozgan province). (5) Distance to
the power and energy transmission lines (this variable is extracted from
the OSM maps). The spatial maps for factors used to map flood vulner­
ability are presented in suppl. 3 and 4.
2.2.2.2. Calculating weights of flood vulnerability conditioning factors. To
calculate the weight and importance of the flood vulnerability condi­
tioning variables, we applied the analytic hierarchy process (AHP).
2.2.2.3. MCDM models. Three MCDM models consisting of CODAS,
EDAS and MOOSRA were applied to map flood vulnerability.
CODAS – suggested by Ghorabaee et al. (2017) – is a new MCDM
model that has some features not considered in the other MCDM models.
It uses the Euclidean and Texicab distances from the negative-ideal
point. EDAS – introduced initially by Ghorabaee et al. (2015b) – is a
helpful technique to handle MCDM problems (Darko and Liang, 2020).
Unlike other MCDM models (e.g., TODIM, VIKOR, and TOPSIS), EDAS
uses the average solutions for evaluating the alternatives.
MOOSRA as a multi-objective optimization technique (Aytaç Adalı
and Tuş Işık, 2017) uses operator ‘division’ instead of ‘subtraction’.
A. Mohammadifar et al.
Fig. 2. Conceptual diagram of mLSTM for predicting flood hazard.
Unlike other MCDM models (e.g., VIKOR, MABAC, and GRA), MOOSRA
chooses the best alternative with high simplification, low computational
time, ignores the extra variables used in other models mentioned above,
and carries out basic mathematical calculations (Narayanamoorthy
et al., 2020).
2.2.2.4. Ensemble MCDM models. The Spearman’s rank correlation co­
efficient (R) is applied to measure the degree of similarity between
ranking pairs of different MCDM models for determining the best MCDM
model (Rao, 2007; Athawale and Chakraborty, 2011). R can be
described as:
∑ results, among 16 features (variables) explored as flood hazard con­
6 mi=1 di2
R=1 − (8)
m (m2 − 1)
where di and m indicate the difference between ranks in two different
MCDM models for the same alternative and the total number of alter­
natives, respectively.
The MCDM models with a high correlation coefficient and signifi­
cance level (p ≤ 0.01) were then used for the ensemble modeling
process.
2.2.3. Flood risk map
Some studies (e.g., Winsemius et al., 2013; Jongman et al., 2012;
Pham et al., 2021) have used flood hazard, vulnerability, and exposure
for assessing flood risk, whereas others (e.g., Masuya, 2014; Scheuer
et al., 2011) have combined two flood components, hazard and
vulnerability, for flood risk assessment. Here, we have combined flood
hazard with flood vulnerability for assessing flood risk. Flood risk (FR) is
a 2-dimensional index consisting of flood hazard (H) and vulnerability
(V). FR is mapped by an integrated modeling approach based on the
mLSTM and MCDM ensemble models:
FR = HmLSTM * VCODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble (9)
where HmLSTM and VCODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble are the flood hazard and
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Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838
vulnerability predicted by mLSTM and the CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA
ensemble, respectively. All key steps used to map flood risk are pre­
sented in Fig. 3.
3. Results and discissuion
3.1. Discriminating important features controlling flood hazard from non-
important ones
Fig. 4 shows the important (confirmed) and non-important (rejected)
features controlling flood hazard identified by GrootCV. Based on the
trollers, nine features comprising distance to the river, NDVI, elevation
(DEM), SAVI, slope, TPI, SPI, river density, and TWI were selected as
important variables, and seven variables consisting of land use, VDC,
soil order, profile, Lithology, curvature and plan were selected as non-
important variables and were excluded from further analysis. Eleva­
tion derived from the DEM, slope, NDVI, and distance to river networks
have previously been identified as important features controlling flood
events (Pradhan, 2010). Flat regions of low elevation and steeper slopes
are particularly susceptible areas to flood occurrence. Slope as a key
flood variable decreases the infiltration time and, as a consequence,
causes runoff to increase enormously (Tehrany et al., 2015). Distance to
the river is the most important feature controlling flood hazard in the
study area because it represents the area where water is most concen­
trated (Fernández and Lutz, 2010). Coupled with river density it rep­
resents the area adjacent to the river that is most susceptible to flooding
(Glenn et al., 2012). According to Ngo et al. (2021) and Pham et al.
(2021), elevation, slope, and land cover are the most important in­
dicators of flood susceptibility. SPI and TWI are important indicators for
the erosive power in overland flow. As topographic variables they
control a variety of different hydrological phenomena associated with
flood occurrence (Moore and Grayson, 1991). Indeed, slope, distance to
the river, and land use/land cover have previously been identified as
critical variables controlling flood events in Northern Iran by Arabameri
A. Mohammadifar et al.
Fig. 3. Key steps used for the spatiotemporal assessment of the different aspects of a flood. DR and RD indicate distance from river and river density, respectively.
et al. (2019).
3.2. The flood hazard map and its performance
The spatial map of flood hazard generated by mLSTM is presented in
Fig. 5. Flood hazard is divided into five classes comprising very low
(0–0.2), low (0.2–0.4), moderate (0.4–0.6), high (0.6–0.8), and very
high (0.8–1) categories. According to the spatial flood hazard map
produced by mLSTM, the very low, low, and moderate classes cover
1232 km2 (26%), 1682 km2 (35.3%), and 973 km2 (20.5%), respec­
tively, whereas 539 km2 (11.2%) and 335 km2 (7%) of the total area
belong to the high and very high hazard class, respectively. Overall, the
areas located in the vicinity of major rivers and streams are the most
5
Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838
susceptible regions to flood hazard.
The results of six statistical criteria used to assess the model’s per­
formance for the train and test datasets are presented in Table 1. The
values of all criteria (except Cohens kappa for train dataset = 86, and for
test dataset = 84) for the two datasets were calculated at > 90, which
indicates that the mLSTM model is highly accurate in mapping flood
hazard. Based on Yesilnacar (2005), mLSTM (with ROC-AUC = 93% for
the training dataset, and ROC-AUC = 92% for the test dataset) was
judged to be of excellent performance. Despite the high performance of
mLSTM (with AUC >90% indicating an excellent performance) in pre­
dicting flood hazard, we are not aware of any report indicating the
application of this model for flood hazard assessment, but there are a few
studies on the application of LSTM for flood modeling. For example,
A. Mohammadifar et al. Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838

Fig. 4. Important (confirmed) and non-important (rejected) features identified by the GrootCV feature selection algorithm.

Fig. 5. Flood hazard map produced by mLSTM.

some researchers (e.g., Luppichini et al., 2022) reported the successful

Table 1 application of LSTM for flood prediction and its susceptibility. In com­
The results of the statistical criteria for assessment of mLSTM model
parison with conventional RNN, LSTM has a better performance in
performance.
solving sequential tasks (Hochreiter and Schmidhuber, 1997). Conven­
Criteria Train dataset Test dataset tional RNN has the problems of gradient vanishing and exploding, and is
Accuracy (%) 93 92 also challenging in solving the long-term sequential input problem
Precision (%) 96 95 (Bengio et al., 1994). In another study by Ramayanti et al. (2022), an
Recall (%) 93 92
integrated model based on synthetic aperture radar images, and two DL
F1 score (%) 95 94
Cohens kappa (%) 86 84 models (CNN and the group method of data handling (GMDH)) were
ROC AUC (%) 93 92 introduced to map flood susceptibility. Their findings showed that the

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A. Mohammadifar et al. Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838

CNN model performed better than the GMDH model. In comparison with
integrated models (e.g., ICO-ADT-FR and ICO-MLP-FR), predictive
models based on integration of the iterative classifier optimizer, deep
learning neural network and frequency ratio exhibit higher performance
in mapping flood susceptibility (Costache et al., 2022b). Flash-flood
susceptibility generated by a deep learning neural network – an
analytical hierarchy process (DLNN-AHP) – is more accurate than those
produced by MLP-AHP, fuzzy AHP and naïve bayes-AHP models (Cos­
tache et al., 2022a). Overall, our findings about the flood hazard can be
useful for the mitigation of soil erosion by water and its negative con­
sequences such as riverine sediment load threating key ecosystem
services.

3.3. The flood vulnerability map

3.3.1. Weights of flood vulnerability conditioning variables

The weights of variables control flood vulnerability calculated by
AHP (Fig. 6). Based on the results, the weights of flood vulnerability
conditioning variables assessed by AHP were as follows: population
density > village density > distance to livestock center > distance to
mining and industrial centers > distance to medicine center > distance
to road > distance to tourism center > distance to power and energy
transmission lines.

3.3.2. Flood vulnerability maps generated by three individual MCDM

models
The results of the three MCDM models used to map the flood
vulnerability in the study area are presented in Fig. 7 and Table 2. Based
on the CODAS model, 23%, 52.5%, 9.5%, 7.5%, and 7.5% of the total
area were classified from very low to very high in flood vulnerability,
respectively. The map generated by the EDAS model suggested that
5.5%, 17.5%, and 47.5% of the total area were classified as very low to
moderate in flood vulnerability, whereas 23.5% and 6% of the study
area were classified as high and very high in vulnerability, respectively.
The results of the MOOSRA model predicted that 39.2% and 40.5% of
the area belonged to the very low and low classes in flood vulnerability,
whereas 15.6%, 4.2%, and 0.5% of the total area were classified as
moderate, high, and very high in flood susceptibility, respectively. Due
to the high density of roads, power transmission lines, proximity of the
population, tourism, services, and economic centers to river networks,
the lands located downstream of the Esteghlal Dam were classified as
high and very high in flood vulnerability, whereas the northern parts of
the study area were classified as being of low and very low vulnerability.
Therefore, the results of MCDM models for assessing flood vulnerability
can be helpful in mitigating economic losses due to damage to basic and

Fig. 7. Flood vulnerability maps generated by (a) CODAS, (b) EDAS, and
(c) MOOSRA.

key infrastructures such as bridges, roads and energy lines.

3.3.3. Flood vulnerability map generated by the CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA

Fig. 6. Weights of variables that control flood vulnerability as calculated by
AHP. PD, VD, DL, DMI, DM, DR, DT, and DP indicate population density, village
density, distance to livestock centers, distance to mining and industrial centers,
distance to medical centers, distance to roads, distance to tourism centers, and
distance to power and energy transmission lines, respectively.
ensemble
Based on the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (R), all three
MCDM models (CODAS, EDAS, and MOOSRA) were correlated with a
significance level of 99% (p ≤ 0.01) (Table 3). It is also noted that the
rankings obtained from the three MCDM models are identical. Based on

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A. Mohammadifar et al. Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838

Table 2 are suitable for ensemble modeling. According to the CODAS-EDAS-

Areas of flood vulnerability classes calculated by three MCDM models. MOOSRA ensemble (Fig. 8), 1027 km2 (21.5%), 1623 km2 (34.2%),
Vulnerability MCDM model 1127 km2 (23.7%), 620 km2 (13%), and 361 km2 (7.6%) of the total area
class were classified as very low to very high in flood vulnerability,
CODAS EDAS MOOSRA
respectively.
Area % Area % Area %
(km2) (km2) (km2)
3.4. Flood risk map generated by integrating mLSTM with the CODAS-
Very low 1088 23 264 5.5 1870 39.2
Low 2501.6 52.5 837 17.5 1923 40.5
EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble
Moderate 451 9.5 2266 47.5 743 15.6
High 356 7.5 1108 23.5 200 4.2 Iran, especially its southern parts, is affected by floods every year and
Very high 362 7.5 286 6 26 0.5 hence requires effective tools for risk assessment and management.
Therefore, an accurate map of flood risk is not only necessary for the
sustainable management of the watershed (Ngo et al., 2021), but also for
Table 3 the mitigation of negative flood consequences. To date, we are not aware
Cross-correlation coefficients obtained by three MCDM models. of any applications of the mLSTM and MCDM models to map flood risk.
Correlations In the present study, we have integrated the mLSTM and ensemble
MCDM models to assess the risk of floods in the study area. The resulting
CODAS EDAS MOOSRA
spatial map of flood risk generated in this way is presented in Fig. 9. The
a
CODAS Correlation coefficient 1.000 .828 .689a integrated model (mLSTM-CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA) predicted that
Sig. (2-tailed) . .000 .000
N 9634 9634 9634
1301 km2 (27.4%), 1634 km2 (34.4%), 703 km2 (14.8%), 745 km2
EDAS Correlation coefficient .828a 1.000 .949a (15.7%) and 372 km2 (7.7%) of the total area can be classified as very
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 . .000 low to very high in flood risk, respectively. Based on the integrated
N 9634 9634 9634 model, the regions located downstream of the Esteghlal Dam (southern
MOOSRA Correlation coefficient .689a .949a 1.000
and southeastern parts of the study area having a flat topography, low
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .
N 9634 9634 9634 elevation, the highest density of population, residential and industrial
a
centers, and with intense agricultural and residential uses) were classi­
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
fied as high and very high in flood risk. By contrast, the northern parts of
the study area characterized by mountainous landscapes, high elevation,
Table 3, all three models are well correlated with each other. Thus, complicated topography, and low density of villages and population
CODAS is highly positively correlated with EDAS (R = 0.828) and were classified as low and very low in flood risk. Integration of deep
MOOSRA (R = 0.689). It is also noted that EDAS has the highest (pos­ neural networks (DNNs) – a DL model – with MCDM models is thus a
itive) correlation with MOOSRA (R = 0.949). Therefore, all three models promising tool for generating accurate maps of flood risk for better flood

Fig. 8. Flood vulnerability map generated by the CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble.

8
A. Mohammadifar et al.
Fig. 9. Flood risk map generated by integrating mLSTM with the CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA ensemble.
management (Pham et al., 2021). Integration of machine learning
models (e.g., support vector machine, classification and regression tree,
and mixture discriminant analysis) with MCDM models can assist local
authorities for identifying susceptible areas for flood management
(Shikhteymour et al., 2023). Of the three models (gradient boosting
decision tree (GBDT), XGBoost and CNN) used to map flood risk, the
GDBT model produced the most accurate results (Chen et al., 2021).
Overall, developing more accurate approaches for assessing flood risk
and improving our understanding of flood hazard and vulnerability can
help lawmakers and decision-makers to mitigate damages and mortal­
ities (Nasiri et al., 2016).
3.5. Historical floods in the study area, and flood of January 2022
The Hormozgan province and Minab have experienced floods for the
past several decades. For example, the Hormozgan province experienced
a big flood in 1992, and this flood had many negative economic and
social effects, and about 1000 casualties. Another flood that occurred in
January 2019 in Minab caused massive damage to the agricultural,
natural resources, and urban sectors.
The flood of January 2022 in Minab was initiated by heavy rainfall
and hail associated with severe thunderstorms. Minab received more
than 270 mm of rainfall over two days, which filled the Esteghlal Dam
(located upstream of Minab city) to over 91% of its capacity. The same
applied to the Shamil-Nian Dams. Inflow and outflow discharges to the
reservoir of the Esteghlal Dam were estimated at 13,000 m3/s and 2500
m3/s, respectively. Due to the opening of the Esteghlal Dam sluices to
release water, a significant part of the downstream land was impacted by
the resulting flood. The roads and water transmission pipes to the
numerous villages and residential regions were severely damaged, and
significant parts of the crops were buried under flood waters and
9
Journal of Environmental Management 345 (2023) 118838
sedimentation. Therefore, the results of this study can be used to miti­
gate flood risk through establishment of upstream check-dams to control
river flow and maintain the suspended sediment load and downstream
dredging and cleaning activities of rivers and channels by construction
of protective walls on the river bank.
Our suggested methodology has a high capability to analyze large
datasets for spatial purposes in different scientific fields and to provide a
basis for mapping floods over large spatial scales. Flood risk is depen­
dent on various features, and integrated modeling based on DL and
MCDM models hence allows us to pin-point the most important of these
for the prediction of flood risk. Additional accuracy of the predictive
models used to map flood risk may be achieved with higher spatial
resolution provided by remote sensing data, especially satellite images
used to map vegetation cover and land use type, and the inherently
higher spatial resolution of DEM (e.g., <10 m) and soil maps.
4. Conclusions
For the first time, this study developed a novel integrated modeling
approach based on an mLSTM deep learning model and an MCDM
ensemble model for assessing the spatial modelling of flood risk. The
mLSTM model was used to map flood hazard, and a new MCDM
ensemble model (CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA model) was developed based
on the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients to map flood vulnera­
bility. Then, integration of the mLSTM and the CODAS-EDAS-MOOSRA
ensemble model was used to map flood risk.
Based on the flood risk map, 27.4%, 34.4%, 14.8%, 15.7% and 7.7%
of the total area were classified as very low, low, moderate, high and
very high risk, respectively. The flood risk map provides good infor­
mation for the sustainability and comprehensive management of the
watershed, and the mitigation of detrimental flood effects. Generally,
A. Mohammadifar et al.
our novel methodology can be helpful for spatial assessments of various
natural hazards around the world. Overall, we recommend that future
research should employ data with high spatial resolution (e.g., variables
extracted from DEM and satellite images) to improve the accuracy of
predictive models and the performance of other DL models (e.g.,
gcForest, BiGRU, BiLSTM, GCN, etc.) to test flood risk mapping in key
plains and watersheds in different climates.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Funding
Not applicable.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Aliakbar Mohammadifar: Software, Formal analysis. Hamid
Gholami: Software, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization,
Writing – original draft, Supervision, Project administration, Review &
editing.. Shahram Golzari: Investigation, Visualization, Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118838.
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