Flood potential and near real-time inundation analysis through geospatial approaches in Shah Alam, Malaysia

Abstract

Flooding is considered a significant natural hazard in Malaysia. climatic conditions and anthropogenic activities are gradually triggering floods in different parts of Malaysia including the study area, i.e. Shah Alam municipality. In the southern region of Shah Alam, where the Klang River runs, November/December and March/April saw the most flooding. To create a mapping of Shah Alam’s flood potential, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy-AHP methods were applied with the twelve criteria. The Sentinel 1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) datasets and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform were used to compute the flood inundation area. Based on the twelve criteria, flood potential zones were divided into five categories such as very high potential (11.58 km2 – AHP and 10.35 km2 – F-AHP) to very low potential (6.49 km2 – AHP and 39.21 km2 – F-AHP), respectively. The most affected areas are the southern part (near Klang River), the central part, and some parts of the northern zone in Shah Alam. The near real-time flood mapping used for previous flood-affected area identification in Shah Alam, Malaysia. Local government and relevant stakeholders can benefit from using this flood potential mapping to reduce the flood effects at Shah Alam via appropriate planning.

Keywords

• Flood susceptibility mapping
• AHP and Fuzzy-AHP
• multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
• Google Earth Engine (GEE)
• Malaysia