Geospatial Assessment of Flood and Drought on the Chure Region of Western Nepal
Abstract Flood troubles people of central chure region and its vicinity almost every year. Besides, the area is also becoming susceptible to the drought currently. In that perspective, it is necessary to assess the vulnerability of floods and drought in the chure region. So this research focused on the assessment of flood and drought geospatially in Butwal city which was the major city and experience flood and drought every year. This study mainly records floods, calculates drought, finds their present condition, studies their trend, and determines drought and flood vulnerable areas within Butwal. Climate data, imagery, soil data, and socioeconomic data, and other relevant information were analyzed and extracted past drought conditions through Temperature and precipitation trend analysis and SPEI model. NDVI, NDDI, NDWI were used to find drought vulnerability status, and AHP and MCDA were used to find flood vulnerability. The city faced extreme drought in 2005, 2011, 2012, and 2013. And, Flood of 1970 and 1981 are the major floods. The area was frequently affected by floods in the past but no flood has been recorded after 2017. About 43% of the area was found high to very highly vulnerable to drought and 68% of the land was found vulnerable to extremely vulnerable to flood. So geospatial vulnerability assessment can enhance the planning decision and effectiveness of activities of the preventive measures by the stakeholders.