Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Areas Vulnerable to Urban Flooding: A Case Study of Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Identification of existing hotspots is one of the principal steps for evolving strategy to mitigate urban flooding, an emerging problem in mega cities of developing countries. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a framework of assessing the spatio-temporal hotspots of urban flooding incidents in Lahore district, Punjab, Pakistan. For this purpose, a database was created by gathering information of sore points by a governmental body, Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) to execute spatio-temporal analysis of urban flooding through hotspot analysis in spatial analyst tool box in Arc GIS. Results show that urban flooding occurs in each town of Lahore excluding Wahga town. Among all affected towns of Lahore, Data Gunj Bakhsh town is noted as a highly affected area accounting 27 percent of urban flooding incidents during monsoon period from 2012-2017. Temporal study also shows an overall increasing trend for incidents of urban flooding during 2012-2017. Moreover, detailed study shows that month of August is noteworthy for urban flooding which is consistently increasing.