Urban Flood Risk Assessment Based on Dynamic Population Distribution and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation

Floods are one of the most common natural disasters that can cause considerable economic damage and loss of life in many regions of the world. Urban flood risk assessment is important for urban flood control, disaster reduction, and risk management. In this study, a novel approach for assessing urban flood risk was proposed based on the dynamic population distribution, improved entropy weight method, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, and the principle of maximum membership, and the spatial distribution of flood risk in four different sessions or daily time segments (TS1-TS4) in the northern part of the Shenzhen River Basin (China) was assessed using geographic information system technology. Results indicated that risk levels varied with population movement. The areas of highest risk were largest in TS1 and TS3, accounting for 7.03% and 7.07% of the total area, respectively. The areas of higher risk were largest in TS2 and TS4, accounting for 4.54% and 4.64% of the total area, respectively. The findings of this study could provide a theoretical basis for assessing urban flood risk management measures in Shenzhen (and even throughout China), and a scientific basis for development of disaster prevention and reduction strategies by flood control departments.