Application of Location Based Service for flood Vulnerability Assessment of Part of Minna, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Flood disaster has been a global emergency issue, the cause may be traced to both natural and man-influenced factors, the alarming increase in global warming has an underlying effect on glacial melting, sea level rise etc. these, coupled with the effect of human activities such construction along flood plain, deposit of waste in rivers etc. have pose a threat not only lives but putting properties into danger. In order to alleviate the effect of this flooding, emergency agencies and individual must be informed about the status of such emergency. Flood vulnerability status is thus a reliable solution to such problem. How will individual get current vulnerability status of their current location? The research revolves around creation of an android application capable of indicating the vulnerability to flooding of points within the study area. Data source include administrative map, Digital Elevation Model and Landsat Imagery with band 6, 7 and 8. ArcGIS software was used to produce the flood vulnerability information and database for the study area. Different elevation ranges; (very low, low, moderate, high and very high) were classified to determine the flood vulnerability status. The android application was developed using Android studio application. The location based service in the mobile device help to correlate the longitude and latitude information of points within the study area with the database to determine the vulnerability status of an area to flooding on average scale. It also stores such details. The result shows that the study area is a relatively low terrain and is more vulnerable to flooding; with very low and low terrain having a percentage of 18 and 36% respectively. The result also show that only 11% of the study area are built up with vegetation and farmland having a percentage of 18% and 22% respectively. Although it was discovered that the flood vulnerability assessment can only be done within the study area, updating can be done to enable it work for other area.