Predicting the effects of intervention scenarios in reducing the vulnerability of local communities in a flood zone (The Qarachai River, Ramyan-Golestan Province, Iran)

Floods are one of the most damaging natural disasters in the world. So better understanding of the flood hazard phenomenon and its potential consequences is necessary. The present research is a part of the flood risk management approach based on the KULTURisk framework, in which vulnerability is examined as one of the flood risk components. The aim of the research is to assess the vulnerability of local communities exposed to the flood occurrence in the current conditions, and also to predict the effects of intervention scenarios to reduce it. Flood vulnerability assessment requires quantifying vulnerability components. In this research, the components, variables and indicators for the region existing conditions were selected based on the intended aim, region field observations and related literature review. The required data and information were collected using questionnaires and interviews with the local communities, statistical yearbooks, population and housing census data center, instructions and guidelines for the management system of statistics and hospital information, as well as referring to related executive organizations at the city and province levels. The statistical population includes local communities living in the 100-year flooding areas in a part of the Qarachai River in Ramian city (one of the tributaries of the Gorganroud River in the Golestan province). The reason for choosing this reach is the location of the villages in the vicinity of the river and the frequency of flood events that have occurred in the past years. The index values were normalized by classification scale and distance to reference methods and the weight of each index was determined by the Delphi method. The normalized index values were converted into spatial layers in the GIS environment. Then, a vulnerability map of the target area was prepared by combining the spatial layers of susceptibility, adaptation capacities and coping capacities variables. Based on the results, three intervention scenarios including early warning system establishment, risk governance intervention and risk spreading were selected in order to reduce the level of vulnerability in the face flooding for the study area. The degree of vulnerability of flood-affected areas in the study area for the current conditions was placed in the "highly vulnerable" class, while by applying intervention scenario under combined scenarios (including early warning system establishment, risk governance intervention and risk spreading), the vulnerability degree would change to "slightly vulnerable" level. The results of this research, is helpful for better understanding of the phenomenon of flooding and its potential consequences by the people and authorities of the Seyed Kalateh village. It also will facilitate the prioritization of measures appropriate to the region conditions in order to reduce vulnerability by increasing the capacity of adaptation and tolerance. Since, the effectiveness of the proposed measures such as creating an early warning system, intervention risk governance and risk spreading on reducing vulnerability and consequently reducing the amount of human and financial losses has been recognized, it is an important step in the direction of flood risk management at different scales. Moreover, the analysis shows the necessity of vulnerability assessment and adoption of specific policies at the local scale (the Seyed Kalateh village), while this issue is usually not considered in technical and financial planning of crisis management especially for flood risk management.