Flood risk zoning in Jahrom urban basin using machine algorithm (Maxent

Flood is one of the most destructive natural disasters with social, economic and environmental consequences. Therefore, comprehensive flood management is necessary to reduce the effects of floods on human life and livelihood. The main goal of this study is to investigate the application of the maximum entropy model (Entropy Maxent) in R software for flood susceptibility mapping in Fars province (Jahrom urban basin). First, by using the information of natural resources of Fars province and field visits, flood-prone points (50 points) were determined. In the next step, environmental variables such as altitude, slope, and distance from the river, drainage density, average annual rainfall, land use, soil type, and geology were selected by performing the multiple collinearity test, and vegetation cover and topographic humidity index were removed. Among the selected environmental variables, the three factors of height distance from the waterway and land use have had the greatest impact in the modeling process. After that, the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was drawn for the flood sensitivity map, and the value of training data (0.943) and test data (0.932) was obtained. In the following, the model was optimized and upgraded using the genetic algorithm. As a result, this flood susceptibility map can be useful for researchers and planners in flood mitigation strategies.