Riverine Flood Damage Assessment of Cultivated Lands along Chenab River Using GIS and Remotely Sensed Data: A Case Study of District Hafizabad, Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Flood is one of a kind of disasters which harms human and animal life around the globe. Pakistan has been observing massive floods for many years because of daily and seasonal variation in the temperature levels. Wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton are major crops cultivated in Punjab region of Pakistan in which rice and sugarcane are mostly effected by floods. In this research paper, damage assessment of cultivated land in district Hafizabad along Chenab River has been calculated. Supervised Classification and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) methods are applied. Pre-flood 2014, post-flood 2014, and pre-flood 2015 Landsat 8 images have been used to calculate the extent of damages to cultivated lands. Water, sand, silt, bare soil and vegetation are classified to identify damage. Results show that vegetation cover has plummeted to 50% after the arrival of flood 2014 in the Chenab. Similarly, 6.7047% of sand and 15.7339% of bare soil deposits have surfaced which have not yet been removed from fertile lands in 2015. 18.4376% standing crop damage has been analyzed under this study. 14.0245% silt deposits have been calculated as post-flood effects. 46.4260% land has been cultivated in 2015 which is 15.5024% lower than 2014 cultivated land. Furthermore, field verification survey has given promising results and has a great correlation with satellite based recovery results.