An Improved Model of Regional Flood Disaster Risk
Assessment Based on Remote Sensing Data
Guangyao Duan, Wenji Zhao, Zhuowei Hu*, Dan Fang
College of Resources Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University
Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of Resources Environment and GIS, Beijing, china
*Corresponding Author, e-mail: huzhuowei@gmail.com
AbstractüüThis paper puts forward a method to improve the
traditional model of regional flood risk assessment with real-time
remote sensing monitoring data and historical flood disaster data.
It takes the Songhuajiang River Basin as the study area to build
the improved regional flood risk assessment model. According to
the characteristics of the study area, factors such as rainfall,
topography, water density, population density and GDP are
selected to build the regional flood risk assessment model based
on GIS and AHP, by which the initial Flood Risk Index of
Songhuajiang River can be calculated. The historical flood level
distribution data that reflect the spatial distribution and
frequency of flood events in the study area can be used to
improve the hazard index. And with the real-time remote sensing
data, the real-time flood extent data can be extracted to improve
final risk assessment which reflects the regional flood risk better.
Keywords-flood risk assessment; remote sensing data;
historical disaster data
I. INTRODUCTION
Flooding is frequent in China and usually causes severe
damage. Therefore, researches on assessment of flooding
disaster risk are pretty significant. Risk analysis in flooding is
an important basis for making measures to control and
alleviate flood effectively and scientifically and is a general
term for a group of probability distribution functions of both
flood and loss generated by flood [3, 11]. There are various
approaches on flood risk analysis such as
hydrology-hydraulics model, system modeling and simulation,
method based on historical disastrous data, RS and GIS
method as well as System Analysis Method based on
formation mechanism of flooding, etc. Similarly, there are
numerous factors inducing flooding and relations among them
are complicated and flood is accidental within a certain period
of time. Therefore, it is hard to simulate the formation and
development process of flooding exactly and make accurate
forecast [5].
Analysis and studies on massive risk events all show that
there are obvious statistical regularities in flood [1]. Hence,
scholars can build models of flood risk by means of risk
analysis in flood based on available data to provide the basis
for decision making on controlling and alleviating flood and
raise people’s awareness. So researches on preventing and
alleviating flood have attracted scientist’ close attention.
This paper proposed the approach that researchers could
improve the results generated by adopting the method based on
formation mechanism of the flooding using historical
978-1-61284-848-8/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
disastrous data and real time remote sensing data to produce
more precise assessment result.
II. RISK ASSESSMENT IN FLOODING
Risk Assessment in Flooding is a process of synthesizing
various factors. Index systems of risk assessment in flooding
established are diverse due to different methods [4]. Driving
factors of flooding are composed of two parts. The first part of
them are natural environment factors which include
meteorological factors, natural vegetation, soil, terrain
topography, water system distribution and soil erosion, etc; the
others are socio-economic factors which include population
density and structure, land use structure, irrigation facilities,
levels of economic development, etc.
Department for Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations
published the definition of natural disaster risk in 1992. It
refers to the expected shortfall of human life and property and
economic activities generated by specific natural disaster in
specified region during certain period.
The equation that Risk(R) =Hazard (H)*Vulnerability (V),
was adopted in the definition, which reflects holistic
characteristics of risks [2]. Actually, hazard is the premise,
vulnerability is the basis and risk is the result.
Hazard-formative factors and hazard-formative environments
mutually decide flood hazard while vulnerability is up to
exposure and fragility of hazard-affected bodies. The weights
of impact-factors are various due to different regional
characteristics.
In this paper, the study area is Songhuajiang River Basin
which is located in the north margin of East Asia Monsoon
region. The climate is obvious continental climate and rainfall
is concentrated in the flood season. 70% of rainfall
concentrates the period from June to September of the year.
Precipitation fluctuates greatly annually and displays evident
characters of phases. Flood and drought usually occur by turns.
The main stream of Songhuajiang River Basin is susceptible to
flood due to low lands [11]. In this paper, we select the factors
of the precipitation factor, the river factor, and the topography
factor to calculate the hazard of flood, and select factors of the
population factor and economic factor to calculate the
vulnerability of flood using the AHP (Analytical Hierarchy
Process) and then analyze and assess the risks of flood.
The authors completed the risk assessment in flood based
on the following process.
 Rainfall
Population
River
Terrain GDP
Historical
Hazard Vulnerability
disaster
Improved flood hazard
Submerged
Flood risk index
area
Improved risk index
 surface. Drainage density refers to the total length of main
Figure 1. Risk analysis process
A. Factors Analysis
1) Hazard factors
Hazard of flood refers to the possibility of occurrence and
is usually described by means of three aspects namely, the
scope, the intensity, and the frequency of disasters. To assess
the hazard of flood of a region, researchers primarily need to
make detailed investigation for the region and analyze the
factors which influence the hazard of flood. Then several main
factors of influence are sifted and bestowed proper weighting
using math techniques together with experience and
knowledge of the experts. Finally, researchers build the model
of analyzing hazard of flood based on the composite index
generated by dealing with main factors of influence.
In this paper, authors chose precipitation, topography, and
river-lake network as factors of influence to assess the hazard
of flood and normalized them. Then, authors synthetically
analyzed the normalized factors and produced the map which
represented the hazard index of Songhuajiang River Basin.
a) Rainfall
Rainfall is the prerequisite of exploding the flood and the
major factor of causing floods. Intensive, prolonged and
widespread precipitation can easily generate cataclysm.
60%-80% of rainfall concentrates the period from June to
September while only 5% from December to February. The
annual average rainfall is about 500 millimeters, can reach the
range from 700 millimeters to 900 millimeters and only 400
millimeters. In general, the rainfall in hilly areas is higher than
in flat area; higher in the southern and middle part than other
parts of the study area.
In this paper, authors choose the actual rainfall of recent
ten days, the actual rainfall of recent three days and the actual
rainfall of recent 24 hours as indexes and normalized them.
Then, authors calculated the weighting of the three indexes by
means of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and after that
produced the synthetic rainfall index using weighted stack
method which was taken for rainfall factor to assess the hazard
of flood.
b) Topography
Topography will directly influence the flood and has close
relation to the degree of the hazard of flood. The terrain is
more complex especially in vast hilly and plain area where it is
hard to control and flight a flood due to lacking of regulatory
large-scale water conservancy works. Therefore, it is easy for
flooding. Impact on flooding generated by topography mainly
consists of two aspects: elevation and topographical change.
Flooding usually occurs in the region where elevation and
landform undulation are lower. And landform undulation is
indicated by relative standard deviation of elevation of some
grid’ neighborhood. Topographical data includes mainly
STRM DEM data of 90m resolution were obtained from
NASA.
c) River-lake network
Surface runoff mainly discharges through the river network
which can influence the infiltration capability of ground
stream and tributary unit River Basin Area which is one of
important indexes that describe river network quantitatively.
Also, drainage density can indicate the density of river system
and rainfall and the underlying surface condition of a region.
Besides, infiltration capability influences the hazard of the
flood seriously.
River network can indirectly reflect the hazard of flood.
The higher rank river, more intensive river network and larger
water area all demonstrate that flood is more dangerous. In this
study, authors took river network for river-lake network to
assess the hazard of flood and generated the river network
density of Songhuajiang River Basin by means of the spatial
analysis tool within ArcGIS 9.3 platform. Then authors
normalized it and produced the river network density index.
2) Vulnerability factors
Vulnerability is explained as the characteristics of
hazard-affected bodies that are easy to be destroyed, damaged
or injured in the flood, and it reflects the bearing capability of
the various types of hazard-affected bodies to floods. The
analysis of vulnerability is to study and establishment the
relationship between the vulnerability of various types of
hazard-affected bodies and the main influencing factors, and to
reveal the flood fighting capability of each hazard-affected
body, it is an important basis for flood risk assessment.
The extent of the damage caused by floods is concerned
with the carriers suffered from the floods. The losses caused by
the flood generally depends on the economic and population
density in flooding areas, so this paper express the
vulnerability as the summation function of property and
population.
Serious population casualties and economic loss will be
caused by a disaster in the areas of socioeconomic develops,
densely populated, city-agglomeration and
high degree of industrialization. The data used to calculate the
flood vulnerability index is mainly from the National Statistics
Yearbook at 2007 which include the population and GDP.
a) Population
The population is directly threatened objects if a flood
hazard happens. The population density is the most important
factor that influenced the losses. The areas that have high
population density will have larger property such as domestic
production, properties and infrastructures, therefore, it will not
only have a large number of affected population but also a
large possibility causing economic losses. In addition, the
population age structure, the education structure, the awareness
of flood risk prevention residents have and the government's
attention to the flood will all affect the disaster situation caused
by the flood. Typically, the elderly and children have less able
to defense hazard and the large proportion of elderly people
and children shows a higher population vulnerability of this
area. Higher education can help victims to make the right
response in a disaster which can reduce the extent of the
damage staff.
b) Economic level
The economic level reflects the vulnerability of flooding
for some degree. A region with abundant material and well
developed economy will have a large density of population
and towns as well as frequent industrial activities. There is a
large number, high density and highly valued hazard-affected
bodies in such an area where it will cause big number of
casualties and economic losses if a flood disaster happens.
GDP per capita is chosen by this paper as an indicator to
measure the level of regional economy and consider that an
area with higher GDP per capita will suffer higher economic
losses if a flood happens.
B. Data Processing and Flood Disaster Risk Assessment
Model
1) Data processing
Due to the different sources and different units of data, the
meaning of the same value is not the same. In order to
utilization and analyze the various factors comprehensively,
the data used in the model should be normalized. Firstly, data
such as rainfall, river density, terrain, population and
socio-economic should be standardized. Secondly, the hazard
index will be calculated based on the rainfall index, river
density index and topographic index as well as the
vulnerability index can be calculated base on the population
index and GDP index. Based on the above results and the
equation "Risk(R) = Hazard (H) * Vulnerability (V) ", the risk
index can be calculated and each unit should be evaluated. The
five criteria and standard division are used for the
classification of the result to determine the level of flood risk
assessment.
The various factors used in the model are normalization
based on the equation below:
and experiences are combined with mathematical method to
select the major factors from a number of possible factors.
Then each factor would be given an appropriate weight and the
composite index calculated is used to build flood analysis
model.
Based on the required normalized index of all Factors, the
(2) (3) (4) can be used to calculated flood hazard index,
vulnerability index and risk index.
Hazard _ Index  Rain _ Index *W1
   
Terrain _ Index *W2 River _ Index *W3
Vulnerability _ Index 
   
GDP _ Index*W1 Population _ Index *W2
Risk _ Index 
   
Hazard _ Index*Vulnerability _ Index
According to expert experience, the weight in (2) (3) can
be determine with the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process)
method with which each index can be calculated.
Hazard_index in (2) is integrated hazard index; W1 is the
rainfall factor weight; W2 is the terrain factor weight; W3 is
the river density factor weight. Vulnerability_index in (3) is
integrated vulnerability index and W1 is the GDP factor
weight as well as W2 is the population factor weight.
Weights in the above equations are:
The hazard index (2): weights of rainfall, terrain and river
density are 0.47, 0.43 and 0.1.
The vulnerability index (3): weights of population and
GDP are 0.6 and 0.4.

xij  min{xij }
 xij'   
max{xij }  min{xij }

The maximum value of each normalized factor is 1 as well

as the minimum value is 0, the remaining value is between 0
and 1. In (1), xij' is the normalized value, xij is the first j
value of the first i factors. min{xij } is the minimum factor of
the first i factors and max{xij } is the maximum factor of the
first i factors.
2) Flood disaster risk assessment model
The comprehensive index method is used in this paper to
calculate the hazard, vulnerability and risk of the flood. To Figure 2. Hazard index
beginning with, the method analyze all factors that would
influenced the result of risk assessment and expert knowledge
 This paper combines historical disastrous data and
real-time remote sensing data to improve the above model in
order to get better risk analysis.
A. Indicators of Historical Disaster
Hydrological and hydraulic method, comprehensive index
method and the comparing method of historical disaster, etc,
are used to assessment risk of flood water as the common
methods. We consider using historical flood data to improve
the result which is calculated by comprehensive index method.
The application of historical flood data which is used for
disaster risk analysis has been carried out a lot by some
scholars [7-9]. Because the flood risk usually includes the
intensity and frequency may suffered from flood disaster in the
study area, the comprehensive analysis of historical data and
the conclusion of history law of the flood occurrence can
reflect the risk of regional flooding in a certain extent.
However, the risk analysis method using historical flood data
is separated from other methods. The paper makes the
historical flood data as a factor for disaster risk assessment to
Figure 3. Vulnerability index improve the initial risk indicators in order to obtain better
results.
First of all we acquired flood frequency data in 1961-2006.
Based on the similarity of flooding index and flood strength
index of present and future, the distribution function of actual
flood strength index can be estimate by means of comparing
the flooding index and flood strength index of current and
historical. Consider the area with high frequency of flood
disaster can reflect a high risk. Then the flood frequency data
should be normalized and weighted–overlay with the initial
risk index to obtain the improved hazard index. The new
hazard index can be calculated with the following (5):

New _ Hazard _ Index 

  
Flood _ Frequency _ Index *0.2 Hazard _ Index *0.8

After get a new hazard index, the new risk index can be
calculated according to (4), and the result is shown as below:

Figure 4. Risk index

III. AN IMPROVED FLOOD DISASTER RISK ASSESSMENT

MODEL
It is no doubt that the methods of flood risk analysis such
as the method based on the flood formation mechanism and the
method based on system simulation, hydrologic and hydraulic
models are more scientific. However, the data needed to build
the models is difficult to obtain sufficiently in the application
process and it is also difficult to quantify the influencing
factors. As a result, the reliability of the results from risk
analysis has some limitations. The research of flood risk
assessment based on history disaster data has been carried out
a lot domestic and international, and it gets a certain degree of
promotion. Remote sensing is wildly used for flood risk
assessment and flood monitoring due to the advantages of such
the timeliness and no touch acquisition of data and
simultaneous observation of wide range.
Figure 5. Improved flood risk index
 It can be seen from Fig. 4, the risk in the green circle of the
improved flood risk index is decreased. According to the
historical statistics data, the area has a lower frequency of
flooding. The model has been improved with the historical
data.
B. Indicators of Sensing Range of Water in Real-time
With the rapid development of obtaining information of
remote sensing and its application in disaster assessment, a
variety of water information can be calculated with remote
sensing data such as the flood submerged area and water level
(flow), etc. In addition, the parameters and variables in the
relevant hydrological process can be calculated with remote
sensing data.
The HJ-1 satellites was launched in September 2008, with
a wide range, all-weather monitoring characteristics, have
higher time resolution than the TM images and higher spatial
resolution than NOAA / AVHRR. The paper uses
environmental satellite images to extract submerged area and
designs the real-time flood risk assessment model.
The improved flood risk models based on historical data
has been established above. According to the comprehensive
rainfall index, remote sensing images in the areas of high index
were separately obtained and processed to improve the model
again. And the new risk assessment result would have higher
accuracy real-time.
In this paper authors collected the HJ-1 data of typical part
of Songhuajiang River Basin separately acquired on 26 June,
and 7 August, 2010. After geometric correction and
registration processing, the cope of water can be extracted with
the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI)
[12]. For the HJ-1 data only have 4 bands: 0.43 - 0.52um, 0.52
- 0.60um, 0.63 - 0.69um, 0.76 - 0.90 um, the MIR in the
NDWI should be replaced by NIR, and the formula for the
extraction of water is:
 MNDWI ˄green - NIR˅˄
/ green NIR˅ 
Because the water reflectance in MIR bands is higher than
in NIR band, the accuracy of extraction will reduce if the MIR
band is instead by NIR in (6). After the DN range of water in
the MNDWI image was determined, a human intervention was
needed for water extraction and the impact of cloud, shadow,
etc can be reduced based on the original image.
The scope of water bodies in the key areas could be
extracted from real-time remote sensing images. By setting it
under the normal water data, the abnormal water can be
obtained. Buffered the abnormal water and consider the result
as a reflection of the higher risk index areas. Weighted overlay
the buffered area and the previous risk index to get the ultimate
risk indicators which can provide reliable basis for disaster
mitigation and relief work.
Figure 6. Real time flood risk index
It can be seen from Fig. 5 that the real-time range of water
raise the flood risk partially. We consider that the higher
degree part (the green circle) in the changed area shows a
higher real-time risk where needs more attention.
IV. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
There has been considerable research on disaster risk
assessment at home and abroad. With the research more
in-depth, risk analysis as a meaning of flood risk assessment
has gradually been accepted and become the primary means in
flood disasters research. According to different fields, the
current flood risk assessment methods vary. There are methods
of geomorphology, hydrologic and hydraulic models and
system simulation methods, methods based on history disaster
data, methods based on historical disastrous and flood survey,
remote sensing and GIS methods, systematic analysis based on
the formation mechanism of flooding [5]. Methods based on
historical disastrous data and ancient flood survey data take
flood data of a shorter or longer period into account for flood
risk assessment. These methods need to collect more historical
data and to study the impact of the terrain, with which to
speculate the risk of the study area. In general such methods
need to combine more field investigation and data collection.
Hydrological hydraulics and system simulation method
requires detailed watershed topography, geology, vegetation,
river cross section, roughness coefficient, engineering facilities,
flood control and other information. Model building is
complex and need large amount of data which is difficult to
obtain in practical work. RS and GIS combination method is
developed in recent years, and the flood risk can be evaluated
with GIS analysis method by synthesize rainfall, economic and
terrain information. The flood risk affected by flood hazard,
vulnerability and disaster regime can be studied on the basis of
formation mechanism of flood.
Various models of flood risk are based on different
principle and different understanding of flood. The factor in
each model has some similarities, but most of them are
separated. The paper has put forward a method which
considers the advantage of several methods and combines
them into a comprehensive method. One model is chosen as
the foundation and considers the impact of factor in other
models to improve the previous risk index.
Base on the flooding mechanism of flood, the paper studied
factors that affect the flood hazard and vulnerability.
Comprehensive analysis and evaluation flood hazard and
vulnerability with GIS analysis methods to get flood risk. The
paper improves the risk index with the historical disastrous
data on this basis of the previous result. Historical disastrous
data itself is the result of the flood act on hazard-affected body.
The historical disastrous data has been statistical analyzed and
added into the risk assessment model. In brief, the historical
data reflects the historical laws of floods which will increase
the accuracy and reliability of risk assessment results
undoubtedly.
Remote sensing is the main means to gather space
information that been widely used in various fields.
Submerged area, submergences and durations of flooding can
be extracted with remote sensing data and such information
can reflects the flood disaster currently. By including the scope
of the current flood water on the basis of the regional flood
risk, the result would more in line with characteristics of the
current flood and shows a better timeliness which is helpful for
the formulation of disaster prevention and relief services
strategy.
V. CONCLUSION AND PROSPECT
Based on the formation mechanism of floods, according to
the feature of the study area to select factors that influences the
flood hazard and vulnerability, the general calculative process
of the regional flood risk index can be studied using GIS
analysis method. Combine with historical data and current
remote sensing data to improve flood risk index which also
improve the reliability of risk assessment and the real-time
exception water body has a strong real-time reference value for
the assessment results. The result may play a key role in the
project of urban disaster resistance and reduction to minimize
the loss.
Because the variety of factors in floods, it is very difficult
to study the flood risk completely accurate and quantitative. In
this paper, based on the formation mechanism in the flood,
remote sensing data and historical data is used to improve the
model which supplies new methods for flood risk analysis.
With the data abundant and the research be deeply
done increasingly, different data and methods are selected
according to the research purpose and the combination of
various methods will both come into different results. This
improved results show that the new risk index combines better
with regional realities and have a greater reliability.
Due to the limitation of data acquisition, the influence
factors have not all been taken into account such as disaster
prevention capacity, land use and other factors are not in our
model. Below the circumstance of more complete data used, a
more in-depth research can be taken on the basis of this study.
There are some differences in the scale of the flood risk
assessment, and Songhuajiang River is taken as the study area
in this paper which is a medium scale. It is possible that the
model in this paper can be improved and be used for the flood
risk assessment of national scale or small-scale area such as
individual cities and counties.
Hydrologic and hydraulic is an important method of flood
risk analysis but not taken into account in our research. With
the development of GIS and remote sensing technology, its
ability of comprehensive analysis is gradually been recognized
and the hydrologic and hydraulic Methods can be combine into
the model with an appropriate method in the next step to get
better results. Actually, in the vulnerability assessment process,
areas with better economic level will have people with higher
education and strong sense of disaster prevention. In such an
area the losses caused by the disaster will be relatively reduced,
but absolute loss will not thus reduce and the vulnerability is
still increasing with the increase of property and population.
We can concluded that factors in the model should be fully
analyzed such as the economic factor can be divided
into two parts affect the result which will be more realistic.
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