Assessment and Management of Flood Hazard for Tulkarm Area in Palestine

Abstract

Flooding is an actual hazard at several watersheds in Tulkarm governorate of Palestine. The lack of integrated planning and appropriate preparedness lead to increased hazard of flood events. This study aims to develop a flood hazard map, using a group of parameters: slope, elevation, drainage density, precipitation, soil texture, land use/land cover, flow accumulation and population density. Analytic Hierarchy Process method and Geographic Information System program were used to weighted parameters. The result showed a flood hazard map with a 12.5 m resolution for Tulkarm study area categorized into five classes (percentage): very low (2%), low (26%), medium (37%), high (28%) and very high (7%) flood hazards. Results were compared with previous studies from the literature, and verified using ground truthing to examine the certainty of the results in three different locations. A group of interventions (structural and non-structural) were proposed for each flood hazard class so that competent authorities could better manage flood hazards. Some of these interventions for high flood vulnerable areas are, applying heavily-engineered structural measures and regular maintenance of rainwater culverts and valley streams. Mapping the flood hazard is an integral part during phases of flood hazard management from mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.