Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Acta Geophysica (2019) 67:215–229 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-018-0233-z RESEARCH ARTICLE - HYDROLOGY Flood risk assessment and mapping using AHP in arid and semiarid regions Farid Radwan 1  · A. A. Alazba 1,2  · Amr Mossad 2,3 Received: 6 April 2018 / Accepted: 28 November 2018 / Published online: 4 December 2018 © Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences & Polish Academy of Sciences 2018 Abstract Identifying food risk-prone areas in the regions of extreme aridity conditions is essential for mitigating food risk and rainwater harvesting. Accordingly, the present work is addressed to the assessment of the food risk depending on spatial analytic hierarchy process of the integration between both Remote Sensing Techniques (RST) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This integration results in enhancing the analysis with the savings of time and eforts. There are several remote sensing-based data used in conducting this research, including a digital elevation model with an accuracy of 30 m, spatial soil and geologic maps, historical daily rainfall records, and data on rainwater drainage systems. Five return periods (REPs) (2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 years) corresponding to food hazards and vulnerability developments maps were applied via the weighted overlay technique. Although the results indicate lower rates of annual rainfall (53–71 mm from the southeast to the northwest), the city has been exposed to destructive fash foods. The food risk categories for a 100-year REP were very high, high, medium, low, and very low with 17%, 41%, 33%, 8%, and 1% of total area, respectively. These classes correspond to residential zones and principal roads, which lead to catastrophic fash foods. These foods have caused socioeconomic losses, soil erosion, infrastructure damage, land degradation, vegetation loss, and submergence of cities, as well life loss. The results prove the GIS and RST efectiveness in mitigating food risks and in helping decision makers in food risk mitigation and rainwater harvesting. Keywords Flood hazard · Flood vulnerability · Flood risk · GIS · RST · AHP Introduction Flash food is a peak overfow of rainwater that generally appears during 6 hours of the outset of a torrential rainfall (Hoedjes et al. 2014; Starosolszky and Melder 2014; Deng et al. 2015; Archer and Fowler 2018). This food happens in a very short time and has a considerable double efect. One results in the availability of an enormous amount of rainwater for diferent applications (Angelakis 2016; Ghaf- farianHoseini et al. 2016). The other is the enormous amount of water that leads to catastrophes and destruction (Abbas et al. 2016; Dale et al. 2016; Karagiorgos et al. 2016). These threats arise due to a defciency of food control systems to assimilate tremendous volumes of water during a storm. This enormous amount of water may involve diferent regions, including agricultural, industrial, and urban areas (Elfeki et al. 2017). Flash foods can entail both moral and material damages, including socioeconomic problems, destruction of the infrastructure, land and soil degradation, crop and vege- tation damage, submergence of cities, and the loss of civilian life (Khan 2011; Mahmood and Mayo 2016; Mahmood and Ullah 2016; Ranjan 2017). Due to calamitous and devastat- ing risks from fash foods, there is an imperious need for mitigating the impact of these foods. Hence, mapping the food risks is crucial for mitigating these risks. The food inundation and risk maps mainly depend on the hazard and vulnerability maps. Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) is one of the approaches used to develop the hazards and vulner- ability maps. The MCE approach is widely used to assess food risk. MCE plays a paramount role in deciding the best alternative * Farid Radwan fradwan@ksu.edu.sa 1 Alamoudi Water Research Chair, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 2 Agricultural Engineering Department, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 3 Agricultural Engineering Department, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt