Assessing the development trend of residential areas in Kabul towards flood-prone areas

In recent years, population growth in the Kabul urban basin of Afghanistan has led to the development of large parts of residential areas towards flood-prone areas. In order to reduce the risks of floods in Kabul basin, in this study, flood prone areas have been evaluated and also the trend of temporal and spatial changes in residential areas of Kabul to flood areas. In order to achieve the desired goals of Landsat satellite images with a spatial resolution of 15 to 30 meters during the years 1990 to 2020, a digital model of 12.5 meters altitude prepared from the USGS site, geological maps and climatic information of the region Used as primary research data. Important research tools included ArcGIS software (for mapping and spatial data analysis) and IDRISI (for land use change analysis), as well as integrated models used in the research. Fuzzy logic - AHP and LCM model. This research has been done in two general stages. In the first stage, flood prone areas have been identified by considering the effective information layer and in the second stage, the development trend of residential areas towards flood areas during the last 30 years has been evaluated. The results showed that Kabul city has a high flood potential so that 495 square kilometers (36%) of the urban area and suburbs of Kabul has a high and very high flood potential, which mainly includes the western, eastern and southeastern regions of Kabul. Also, the results of assessing the progress of residential areas towards flood-prone areas indicate that 84 square kilometers (24.5%) of Kabul urban area is exposed to floods, which is due to maintaining the current development trend of the city until 2050. Will increase to 96.1 square kilometers (27.9%). The results of this study can be effective in order to manage environmental risk in the study area.