Assessing the Physical Development Trend of Poldokhtar City Towards Flood-Prone Areas

Flooding is one of the most important risks facing residential areas. Poldokhtar is one of the areas that has been flooded in recent years. The hydrogeomorphological position of this city has caused this city to be a high-risk flood zone, and this issue will be addressed in this paper. In this research, unlike many studies, in addition to identifying the areas prone to floods, the trend of development of residential areas to flood areas is identified. The results of identifying the areas prone to floods indicate that a large part of the urban area and the suburbs of Poldokhtar, including its western areas due to proximity to the river, low altitude and slope, has a high flood potential. The results of the evaluation of the development trend of residential areas towards flooded areas have shown that the use of residential areas in 1990 was 1.5 square kilometers, but it increased during the years under study (i.e. 2000, 2010, 2020) to 2.6, 3.7 and 5.4 square kilometers, respectively. An important issue regarding the increase in land use is related to its development trend towards flood-prone areas. That is, in 1990, 1.3% of residential areas (equivalent to 86.7%) in Poldokhtar City were located in the region with high flood potential, and this amount increased to 2.2, 2.9 and 4.1 square kilometers during 2000, 2010 and 2020, respectively. Due to the above-mentioned cases, no attention has been paid to floods in the region in terms of the physical development of Poldokhtar City, and this issue has caused a large part of residential areas to move to flood-prone areas in recent years.