Flood Potential Zonation Using Analytic Hierarchy Process in Kurdistan Province

Preparation of flood zoning maps is one of the primary and necessary measures in the management of flood prone areas. In this study, analytic hierarchy process, and geographic information system were used to assess and zoning the flood potential map in Kurdistan province, Iran. The factors involved in flooding including rainfall, slope, distance from river, drainage density, land use and topographic wetness index were used for zoning and providing flood maps. Effective criteria, except for land use and rainfall, were prepared using the digital elevation model, and each factor was weighted by Expert Choice software. The results showed that rainfall, slope, and distance from the river with weights of 0.409, 0.295, and 0.134 were the most important factors, respectively. In terms of flood potential zoning, different areas of the province were placed in five categories: very low (0.1%), low (1.9%), medium (43%), high (52%) and very high (3%). The flood potential at the outlet of the watersheds limited to the downstream and low-slope areas of main rivers in the western and central parts of the province was very high.