Vulnerability of Forest Vegetation Due to Anthropogenic Disturbances in Western Himalayan Region of India

The Western Himalayan zone of India is not only threatened by rapid climatic changes, natural floods, and fires, but also by anthropogenic activities. Himalayan forests are vulnerable due to climatic changes and faced severe ecological deterioration due to anthropogenic pressures. The degradation of forests due to anthropogenic disturbances is increasing because of overgrowth of population, high poverty ratio, as well as the limitations of alternative livelihood options. Further resources from forest makes it inseparable to manage forest stands without considering the importance of socio-economic status and ecological aspects of forest management to the well-being of local communities. Therefore, the Himalayan forests and the communities depending on forests should be seen as a part of an evolving. This chapter will explore the vulnerability of the knowledge towards Western Himalayan forests and community-based management of forests. Additionally, it will sketch potential sites affected through anthropogenic pressures.

Climate Change-Induced Flood Disaster Policy Communication Issues for Local Community Adaptation Resilience Management in Uganda

Effective climate change and disaster policy communication services are vital for enhancing the adaptive resilience capacity of the vulnerable local communities in poor countries like Uganda. This chapter focuses on the effectiveness of the Ugandan national climate change and disaster policy information communication strategies in addressing national flooding disaster risks, highlights the recent trends of knowledge based responses to climate change induced floods, assesses the impact of the flood on the socio-economic well-being of local households and communities, and determines the vulnerability issues with corresponding adaptation strategies to floods in the flood prone country. Climate change flood risks have continued to exact huge socio-economic loss and damage effects due to the vulnerability and weak adaptation strategies to floods. The national meteorological services tend to forecast seasonal flood events; some flood forcing factors; and the impact of floods on social, economic, ecological, and physical infrastructure are on the rise in some parts of the country.

Flood Vulnerability, Risk, and Susceptibility Assessment

Flood can be assessed through flood vulnerability, risk, and susceptibility analysis using remote sensing, geographic information system, and hydrological modelling. In this chapter, different stages, complexities, and processes of flood vulnerability, risk, and susceptibility assessment were discussed. The study reveals that flood vulnerability should be assessed based on four aspects: physical, social, economic, and environmental. Flood risk should be assessed by three stages: risk analysis, disaster relief, and preparedness, whereas flood susceptibility assessment involves three processes. Overall, it was found that the responsible factors vary as per the local conditions, which need to be carefully analyzed and selected. Furthermore, the role of remote sensing and geographic information system in flood risk management were found important especially in flood risk mapping and in the selection of responsible flooding factors.

Hydraulic Modeling of Oued El Jawaher Using HEC-RAS Model for Flood Protection

Flooding has a wide range of impacts on societies and natural environments. In this sense, the city of Fez suffers from these problems reflected by the overflow of Oued El Jawaher during the rainy periods. This situation led the authors to compare between the current situation and the situation developed by the thresholds of Oued El Jawaher. HEC-RAS hydraulic model consists of 31 cross-sections, which will be used in the course of this study. The simulations will concern the current state and the developed state for flows of different frequencies. The result of the simulations confirms that the capacity of the proposed hydraulic structures is insufficient to transit and should be considered. To conclude, the development of the channel by thresholds, which serves for the creation of water plan, magnifies the risk of an overflow of the banks of the canal by the water line along with the longitudinal profile.

Quantification and Evaluation of Water Erosion

The Ziz Watershed is located in the arid zones of South-Eastern Morocco and belongs to the large basin of Ziz-Rheris. In this basin, floods are related to natural factors and mainly to the occupation of the hydraulic public domain and the human intervention on the courses of the rivers. Increases in sediment yield are observed in many places in the Ziz, dramatically affecting water quality and reservoir management. In order to map overland sediment generation and delivery to the stream (studying the service of sediment retention), the InVEST sediment delivery ratio (SDR) model was applied. The sedimentation analysis in the Hassan Dakhil Dam, located in this watershed, shows that there is a very important erosion rate. The proof is the rapid filling of the dam. This is due to the transport of sediments in the rivers. If this situation continues at the current rate, the dam will no longer be fully operational for irrigation by 2050.

General Review of Calibration Process of Nonlinear Muskingum Model and Its Optimization by Up-to-Date Methods

Nonlinear Muskingum method is a very efficient tool in flood routing implementation. It is possible to estimate an outflow hydrograph by a given inflow hydrograph of a flood at a specific point of the river channel. However, it turns out an optimization problem at the stage of employing this method, and it becomes important to reach the optimal model parameters so as to obtain precise outflow hydrograph estimations. Hence, it was decided to utilize five up-to-date optimization algorithms, namely, vortex search algorithm (VSA), gases brownian motion algorithm (GBMO), water cycle algorithm (WCA), flower pollination algorithm (FPA), and colliding bodies optimization (CBO). The algorithms were integrated with the nonlinear Muskingum model so as to estimate the outflow hydrograph of Wilson data, and it was deduced that WCA, FPA, and VSA perform relatively better than the models employed in the other researches before.

Composite Indicators as Decision Support Method for Flood Analysis

Floods are highly relevant extreme events with increasing frequency at a global scale. They remain among the most dangerous and complex natural disasters in middle and low-income countries. In this context, it is necessary to develop decision-support tools to reduce the flood risk and increase the resilience. The chapter reviews one of the most relevant tools, the flood vulnerability index (FVI) category at a global scale. These tools use hydrological, topographic, socio-economic parameters strongly associated with flood vulnerability. The findings indicate that FVI is a flexible tool for integrated assessment of vulnerability to floods for application in different regions. Social, environmental, and physical components are the main components used in the FVI. Household and neighborhood, basin, urban, sub-catchment, and coastal are the different levels of vulnerability analysis.

Environmental Hazards Assessment at Pre-Saharan Local Scale

Ecosystem management requires biophysical and socio-economic measurement. The intervention of the government and the local community in order to combat the degradation of ecosystems must take into account the effects of the environmental hazards. This can reinforce the inhabitants' ability to adapt at local level. The impact on ecosystem and resources are numerous and complex. Consequently, a multidisciplinary evaluation is needed. In this context, a new approach was proposed, called environmental hazards assessment at local scale. It was used to evaluate the risk of several oasis resources to multiple hazards in the Middle Draa Valley. The findings show that for all resources, desertification is the biggest challenge affecting this area followed by drought, sandstorms, and then floods. This risk assessment approach can provide guidance for future assessments.

Flood Hazard Casting and Predictions of Climate Change Impressions

Climate change is a word that we have heard hundreds of times, but what is it? Is it happening or is it something made by us? There are thousands of such questions, thoughts, doubt which come to our minds as soon as we hear the words “climate change.” Even though there are hundreds of research works and many more proofs stating that the climate change is happening, there is a side which has been generally overlooked, and that is what if the climate change that we look is just something made by us. Climate change refers to long-lasting changes in temperature, clouds, humidity, and rainfall around the world. Both local and global factors cause regional climate change. This difference is significant because if a regional climate change occurs on account of local factors, then these changes can be mitigated by local actions. This chapter explores flood hazard casting prediction of climate change impressions.

Hydrologic Modeling Using SWAT

The Innaoune Watershed represents an important hydric potential of the oriental part of Morocco. However, the basin exhibits a set of hydrologic drawbacks, such as floods, erosion, and pollution. This chapter is focused on flood forecast study. In order to help managers and decision makers to adopt the appropriate land management strategies for protecting the population from flood damages, the study of the hydrological behavior and quantification of water yield are paramount. According to this perspective, the main goal of this chapter is to test the ability of the SWAT model to simulate and reproduce the hydrological behavior of the upstream of Innaouene Watershed. The output of the model could be used to map, delineate, and forecast the floods expansion for a particular rainfall event. SWAT was performed on a daily time step from 2004 to 2012 for calibration and 2012 to 2014 for validation. The model accuracy was evaluated by measuring the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient and R2.