Urban flood hazard mapping using machine learning models: GARP, RF, MaxEnt and NB

Rapid urban development, increasing impermeable surfaces, poor drainage system and changes in extreme precipitations are the most important factors that nowadays lead to increased urban flooding and it has become an urban problem. Urban flood mapping and its use in making an urban development plan can reduce flood damages and losses. Constantly producing urban flood hazard maps using models that rely on the availability of detailed hydraulic-hydrological data is a major challenge especially in developing countries. In this study, urban flood hazard map was produced with limited data using three machine learning models: Genetic Algorithm Rule-Set Production, Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt), Random Forest (RF) and Naive Bayes for Kermanshah city, Iran. The flood hazard predicting factors used in modeling were: slope, land use, precipitation, distance to river, distance to channel, curve number (CN) and elevation. Flood inventory map was produced based on available reports and field surveys, that 117 flooded points and 163 non-flooded points were identified. Models performance was evaluated based on area under the receiver-operator characteristic curve (AUC-ROC), Kappa statistic and hits and miss analysis. The results show that RF model (AUC-ROC = 99.5%, Kappa = 98%, Accuracy = 90%, Success ratio = 99%, Threat score = 90% and Heidke skill score = 98%) performed better than other models. The results also showed that distance to canal, land use and CN have shown more contribution among others for modeling the flood and precipitation had the least effect among other factors. The findings show that machine learning methods can be a good alternative to distributed models to predict urban flood-prone areas where there are lack of detailed hydraulic and hydrological data.

Automated summary

Machine learning models were used to predict urban flood hazard areas with limited data, showing good prediction performance in the absence of detailed hydraulic-hydrological data.