A review on flood risk assessment using multicriteria decision making technique

AbstractFlood disaster risk assessment is a crucial and very challenging task because of the uncertainty of flood events that are due to many climatic and physiographic factors of watersheds. The focus of this paper is to review flood risk assessment using multicriteria analysis (MCA) approach by considering risk as a function of flood hazard and vulnerability. The study analyzes the methods and reports of recent works in assessing flood risk based on MCA technique. The review reveals that the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) is the most widely used MCA technique due to its simplicity, less data requirement, and sound and reliable predictions of flood risk zones. The study also reveals that flood risk is a function and product of flood hazard and vulnerability. More so, high flood hazard does not guarantee high flood risk and vice versa. Furthermore, high flood vulnerability does not guarantee high flood risk and vice versa. In conclusion, more efficient state‐of‐art flood models that are based on hydrological processes should be explored for effective flood risk assessment and mapping. Further studies on flood risk should incorporate impact of climate change on flood risk indicators.