Assessment of flood risk in Söğütlü stream watershed of Trabzon province in Turkey using geographic information systems and analytic hierarchy process approach

Floods are significant natural disasters that have wide-ranging social, economic, and environmental consequences on a global scale. They lead to land degradation and increased erosion, which in turn negatively impacts water quality. In the present study, the Söğütlü stream watershed in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey was chosen as the study area to create a flood risk map using Analytical Hierarchy Process and Weighted Overlay tools in the ArcGIS. The raster maps, including soil type, rainfall, landuse, slope, aspect, elevation, and distance to the stream, were utilized as the foundation for the analysis. The flood risk map generated from this analysis reveals five risk zones that is very high, high, moderate, low, and very low-risk zones. Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the obtained data. The study results indicate that low and moderate areas encompass 95.98% of the watershed, while high-risk and very high-risk areas account for 4.02% of the watershed in the flood risk map of the Söğütlü watershed. It was observed that areas in close proximity to rivers, low slope end elevation were more susceptible to flooding. This study is great importance as it allows for the development of preventive, preparatory, and post-disaster plans before flood events occur by providing a flood risk map. Moreover, the creation of a flood risk map at the watershed scale helps planners in undertaking soil and water conservation efforts during watershed planning.