Flash flood susceptibility analysis and its mapping using different bivariate models in Iran: a comparison between Shannon's entropy, statistical index, and weighting factor models

Flooding is a very common worldwide natural hazard causing large-scale casualties every year; Iran is not immune to this thread as well. Comprehensive flood susceptibility mapping is very important to reduce losses of lives and properties. Thus, the aim of this study is to map susceptibility to flooding by different bivariate statistical methods including Shannon's entropy (SE), statistical index (SI), and weighting factor (Wf). In this regard, model performance evaluation is also carried out in Haraz Watershed, Mazandaran Province, Iran. In the first step, 211 flood locations were identified by the documentary sources and field inventories, of which 70% (151 positions) were used for flood susceptibility modeling and 30% (60 positions) for evaluation and verification of the model. In the second step, ten influential factors in flooding were chosen, namely slope angle, plan curvature, altitude, topographic wetness index (TWI), stream power index (SPI), distance from river, rainfall, geology, land use, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). In the next step, flood susceptibility maps were prepared by these four methods in ArcGIS. As the last step, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated for quantitative assessment of each model. The results showed that the best model to estimate the susceptibility to flooding in Haraz Watershed was SI model with the prediction and success rates of 99.71 and 98.72%, respectively, followed by Wf and SE models with the AUC values of 98.1 and 96.57% for the success rate, and 97.6 and 92.42% for the prediction rate, respectively. In the SI and Wf models, the highest and lowest important parameters were the distance from river and geology. Flood susceptibility maps are informative for managers and decision makers in Haraz Watershed in order to contemplate measures to reduce human and financial losses.