1PhD Scholar, Department of Architecture, National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh
2Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh
3Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh
Floods are the most common natural disasters caused by complicated factors. It becomes more disastrous in the hills because of the complex topography. Floods have become more frequent in recent years due to climate and land use and land cover (LULC) change. The present research is focused on studying the impacts of both climate and LULC change on flood patterns in the Beas River basin. The research is carried out in three stages. In the first stage, the data about the primary factors, climate change, and LULC change, were acquired for past years. Additional secondary factors contributing to floods in hilly areas were identified from the literature. In the second stage, LULC change was analyzed, and the Kappa coefficient test was used to check the accuracy of LULC maps. Climate change projections were considered for this study. In the third stage, flood susceptibility mapping was done by considering changes in LULC, climate change, and all the secondary factors in a geographic information system (GIS) using weighted overlay analysis. The flood susceptibility maps of the Beas basin show an increase in moderate to very high flood-prone areas from 5.38 to 28.96 percent from the year 2000 to 2020, respectively.
Beas basin, Climate change, Flash floods, Flood susceptibility, LULC change
