Urban Flood Vulnerability Assessment for Ahmedabad City

Cities worldwide are experiencing the effects of extreme climate events. Urban floods have emerged as a direct consequence of climate change in cities. Understanding the vulnerability to flooding would help policy actions to reduce the impacts due to flooding. This paper targets Ahmedabad, one of the major cities in India witnessing rapid urbanization and frequently struggling with floods. The study utilizes flood vulnerability indicators, quantifying and establishing a flood vulnerability index for Ahmedabad. The index links social, environmental, infrastructure, economic, and building-level indicators to define flood vulnerability. The relative importance of the indicators is arrived at by using experts' inputs and merged with the indicator to spatially analyze the patterns of vulnerability in the city comprising the four dimensions. The study finding suggests the city's eastern side is most vulnerable to floods. Twenty-four percent of the Ahmedabad population lives in highly vulnerable areas and seventy-four percent in moderately vulnerable areas, while a mere two percent of Ahmedabad's population resides in low-vulnerable areas. Lambha ward is the most vulnerable for the social dimension, while Dani Limda ward is the most vulnerable for the economic dimension. Kadi ward performs poorly in the environmental and infrastructure dimension. Sarkhej emerges as the most vulnerable ward in building conditions. Combining the dimensions, Shahpur is the most vulnerable ward when considering overall flood vulnerability.