INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 9, ISSUE 03, MARCH 2020 ISSN 2277-8616

Flash Flood Risk Mitigation Plan: Zarqa Ma‘in

Basin, Along The Dead Sea In Jordan
Hüseyin Gökçekuş, Youssef kassem, Nour Alijl and Mohammad Tawalbeh

Abstract— Flash flooding risk impacts can be reduced through the implementation of mitigation strategies plan (MSP) on flood management. Flood
risks and natural hazards, which have been increased due to changing physic characteristics of the hydrological system caused by climate change in the
Middle East In this decade and all over the world. The presented paper proposes a flash flood risk mitigation plan(FFRSMP) to be implemented by
municipalities, provincial administrators and authorities to reduce impact of flash flood based on identified strategies, risk matrix and generated flood
inundation map using 2D HEC-RAS software based on unsteady flow analyses for rainfall with limitation of measured data, applied on wadi Zarqa Ma‘in
(hot springs ) in dead sea area, a fill sink digital elevation model (DEM) was extracted to analysis catchment area, flow accumulation, channel networks,
basins, slopes, flow path using SAGA and QGIS.

Index Terms— flash flood, risk matrix, DEM, QGIS, HEC-RAS, mitigation, strategies plan.

——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION
Flash floods are natural hazard frequently occurred over the
world and a harmful risk for human beings, and flood impact is
about a 30% of the economic losses mete out to natural
hazards [25]. Over 175,000 people were killed in a total 1816
flood worldwide in 1975–2001[11] Moreover, around 2.3 billion
people from the third of the world's population has been
affected by floods in last 20 years due to climate changes
which have been estimated by the United Nations [24].
Conducting and planning for the flood risk which is identified
as ‗hazard‘[2] can be translated into maps developed by
computer modeling showing the boundary of the terrain at risk
as well as flow depth, water surface elevations(WSE) and
velocities to inform the public, planners, decision-maker about
prone areas inflicted by flood. Previous studies over the world
have used the same criteria as summarized below.
1. a hydrological model considering the wetness index
using QGIS and SAGA software by using the Digital
Elevation Model (DEM) of the study area. In addition to
analyzing the hydraulic model using HEC-RAS under a
wide range of return period-flood events to generate flood
inundation maps. That results in taking safety measures
against flood impact on human beings and economic
losses in urban areas particularly [1].
———————————————
* Correspondence Author
 Hüseyin Gökçekuş, Department of Civil Engineering, Civil and
Environmental Engineering Faculty, Near East University, 99138
Nicosia (via Mersin 10, Turkey), Cyprus. Email:
huseyin.gokcekus@neu.edu.tr
 Youssef Kassem, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Engineering Faculty/ Department of Civil Engineering, Civil and
Environmental Engineering Faculty, Near East University, 99138
Nicosia (via Mersin 10, Turkey), Cyprus. Email:
xyz2@blueeyesintlligence.org
 Nour Alijl, Department of Civil Engineering, Civil and Environmental
Engineering Faculty, Near East University, 99138 Nicosia (via Mersin
10, Turkey), Cyprus. Email: nourshan2002@outlook.com
 Mohammad Tawalbeh, Department of Civil Engineering, Civil and
Environmental Engineering Faculty, Near East University, 99138
Nicosia (via Mersin 10, Turkey), Cyprus. Email:
Tawalbeh993@hotmail.com
2. The study proposed a scheme integration of hydrological
models based on runoff simulation and rainfall data
mutually with FIM to assess the flash flood risk impact for
Wadi Fatimah in an arid region in Saudi Arabia (SA) Using
GIS techniques. This concludes the integrated scheme is
a useful tool to evaluate the impact of flood risk and
hazard, in addition, the dam construction with limited
measured hydrological data [7].
3. The study is conducted the United States, including Iowa -
Cedar River watershed and Alabama - Black Warrior River
to compare two new generated hydrodynamic model for
flow inundation maps using 2D HEC-RAS, and low-
complexity tools HAND( AutoRoute and Height Above the
Nearest Drainage ), which result as fast predictions tool in
large-scale hyper-resolution operational frameworks [5].
4. The study proposed a risk flood matrix technique applied
in Taibah and Islamic universities catchment in Saudi
Arabia (SA). developed matrix based on the probability of
flood occurrence and inundation flood map generated by
HEC-RAS software. A quantitative analysis was
conducted to assess flood economic losses impact [8].
5. The study proposed an integrated model using
KINEROS2 and HEC-RAS software to forecast flash flood
occurrence in Northern Vietnam which is a heavy flash
flooding prone area. using different precipitation datasets
which conclude a relation between flow velocity, water
level and streamflow power to predict flood occurrence on
the gauged data [14].
2 STUDY OBJECTIVE
The study proposes a flash flood risk mitigation plan to be
implemented by municipalities, provincial administrators,
authorities to reduce impact of flash flood using flood
inundation map generated by SAGA,QGIS and 2D HEC RAS
software‘s in addition of flood risk matrix to identify local
communities and structural strategies to be used in a

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quantitative analysis for future work .

3 STUDY-AREA BACKGROUND
The catchment area of Wadi Zarqa Ma‘in (hot springs) is
located between 35° and 36° longitude and 31° 40‘ and 31° 60‘
latitude within dead sea area which considered is the lowest
point on the world as shown in Fig. 1 below. Which received a
flash flood on the 25th of October 2018 that caused death for
22 people mainly school students and teachers also destroyed
a bridge on the Dead Sea Cliffs. The temperatures of Wadi
Zarqa Ma‘in (hot springs) area are ranged from 30 to 63℃,
receiving their water from the Lower Cretaceous and older
sandstones with groundwater for Wadi aquifers is the main .
supply for Madaba water demand [23] Agricultural activities Fig. 2. : schematic description for proposed methodology
have been developed in the study area which is supported by
The proposed method requires the main set of input data as
rainfall with major corps of wheat, tobacco, olive, barley, and
summarized below.
grapes.
 Extracted a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in Geo-Tiff
format.
 Extracted hydrologic model by wetness indices.
 Rainfall data.

4.1. EXTRACTED DIGITAL ELEVATION MODEL (DEM)

Extracted digital elevation model (DEM) using USGS earth
explorer after fill sink area by using saga plug 2.3.2 based on
wang Liu method, updated DEM was used to extract network
channel, flow accumulation based on top-down method, basin,
slopes, flow path cross-sections and profile using Quantum
Fig. 1. : Wadi zarqa ma‘in catchment area location– QGIS-street map
geographic information system (QGIS10.3) software as shown
in Fig. 3 below.

4 METHODOLOGY
The proposed methodology is shown in Fig. 2 consists of the
analysis of catchment area and flow delineation using QGIS
and SAGA plug, gathering available precipitation data from the
nearest CC02 station in the study area. The collected and
analyzed runoff and precipitation to be used as input into the
2D HEC-RAS model used by US federal emergency
management agency (18) to determine the flood depths, a risk
flood matrix is generated to estimate probability and impact of
flood hazards. Quantitative risk analysis to be conducted in
future works; define strategies for local communities and
structure
Fig. 3. : catchment area with fill sink -DEM using SAGA and QGIS,Map
scale 1:250000
4.2. EXTRACTED HYDROLOGIC MODEL BY WETNESS INDICES
A hydrologic model by wetness indices has been extracted
using Saga 2.3.2 based on sink DEM and using basic analysis
terrain tool as shown in Fig‘s 4 & 5 to extract Topographic
Wetness Index (𝑇�𝑊�𝐼�) which is widely used in hydrological
analysis [13, 19, 23] and defined by Beven and Kirkby [4] as

𝑇𝑊𝐼 ( )������������������������������������������������������������������ ( )
𝑇
Where, � is the upslope area of flow accumulation (6) and �

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is the slope angle, assuming the soil is homogeneous and
isotropic for study area as constrain.
smallest catchment within the dead sea area (16) and
heterogeneous area as a result of the pervious study (15) and
Madaba water demands were supplied by wadi aquifers. The
extracted flow path with a total length 50,126m profile shows a
high difference in elevations range between 771 to - 293 and
non-uniform slopes which result in increasing water velocity to
reach 10 m/s and non-uniform cross sections of wadi as
illustrated in Fig. 7 below.

Fig. 4. : basic terrain analysis by SAGA 2.3.2

Fig. 7. : flow path plan as per HEC-RAS model.

In summarized table 1 and Fig. 8 below slopes variances

Fig. 5. : Hydrologic model by wetness indices using SAGA ,Map scale
1:250000
4.3. RAINFALL DATA
Precipitation data is available in the nearest stations CC01
and CC02 in the surrounding of the study area as shown in
Fig. 6, also there is no ungauged station to measure flow.
along flow path in station 0+000 to 20+420 is a gentle slope
will not increase flow velocity , following stations from 20+420
to 44+230 the slope is moderate but the velocity is increased
but still within accepted velocity limit which is around 5 m/s ,
for stations 44+346 to 50+126 slope is steep which result to
increase it to 10 m/s which require structural mitigations such
as wadi bed lining , adding sand bags , chutes , Baffles or
wadi diversion.

Fig. 8. : flow path profile.

TABLE1.: CALCULATED SLOPES FOR FLOW PATH.

Stations Elevations (m)

Distance Slope
From To Top Bottom
(m)

17+00 771.7 0.375

0+000 17,000.0 707.96
0 1 %
0
20+42 707.9 0.741
17+000 682.61
0 3,420.00 6 %
22+22 682.6 1.114
20+420 662.51
5 1,805.00 1 %
Fig. 6. : Rainfall stations within the study area and average rainfall over 22+22 23+98 662 1.467
1,763.00 636.65
Jordan Intensity-Duration-Frequency Relationship Manual IDF 5 8 .51 %
Curves,2011. 23+98 30+80 636 2.399
6,821.00 473.01
8 9 .65 %
5 DISCUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 30+80 41+12 473 2.123
5.1. CATCHMENT AREA AND FLOW DELINEATION 9 6
10,317.00
.01
254.03
%
The catchment area is 266 km 2 which is considered the 41+12 44+23 3,104.00 254 154.68 3.201
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6 0 .03 %
44+34 44+62 82. 6.061
277.00 65.61
6 3 4 %
44+62 47+22 82. - 8.727
2,605.00
3 8 4 144.94 %
-
47+22 50+12 - 4.420
2,898.00 144
8 6 273.02 %
.94

Cross sections shown in Fig. 9 along flow path is not regular

and require retention shaping to reduce flood wave.

Fig. 9. : flow path cross sections.

Accumulated flow as QGIS analysis equal 1409 cu.m/s which

compared to reported flow (1000 -1500 cu.m/s) when the flash
flood happened last year.

5.2. RAINFALL DATA

As per a pervious study conducted the flow of the main wadi
was decreased from 37.5 cu.m/s in 1981 to .23 in 2010 cu.m/s
during 31 years measurement (17), the reported data in the
Fig. 10 below was used as input to estimate flood depth using
unsteady flow analysis.

Fig. 10. : annual flow dated from 1980 to 2011.

Collected data for daily precipitation dated from 22nd

October2018 to 31st December2018 which received from the
municipality of water and irrigation was used as input for flood
map inundation as shown in the Fig. 11 below the maximum
daily precipitation recorded in October is 50 mm and 46.7 mm
respectively. November and December the maximum daily
precipitation recorded is 12.3 mm and 12.1 mm.
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:daily precipitation dated from 22 nd October 2018 to
Fig. 11.
st
31 December2018.
In the event of dead sea flash flood, the intensity of rainfall,
which reached 50 mm in a period of time not exceeding 20
minutes, the frequency as per IDF is 25 years which has been
checked from below IDF diagram shown in Fig. 12 for the
collected rain fall depth from 1980 to 2005.
Fig. 12. : IDF curve
5.3. GENERATE INUNDATION FLOOD MAP
Using HEC-RAS software to generate a 2D hydraulic model
based on unsteady flow analysis to estimate the water surface
elevations, depth and velocity using precipitation, flow
hydrograph and normal depth data as shown in Fig‘s 13,14 &
15.
Fig. 13. : unsteady flow data and analysis tool -HEC-RAS
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ISSN 2277-8616
Fig. 14. : flow map inundation depth based on daily precipitation dated
from 22nd October2018 to 31st December 2018. (maximum depth =7.00
m).
Fig. 15. : flow map inundation depth based on annual flow dated from
1980 to 2011(maximum depth =10.00 m).
5.4. GENERATE A RISK FLOOD MATRIX
Proposed risk matrix shown in the Fig. 16 below based on the
impact of flow depth in horizontal row with classified
consequences namely: low, minor, major, sever and
catastrophic and probability of occurrence of return period in
vertical row classified to almost certain(every time), likely(1-5
years), possible(25 years), unlikely(25-50 years), rare(100-200
years), which used to define degree of risk by multiply impact
by probability and the results classified into low, medium and
high, represented green, yellow and red respectively.
Quantitative and cost analysis for the risk to be conducted in
future works.
Fig. 16. : Risk Matrix
5.5. DEFINE STRATEGIES OF THE VULNERABLE LOCAL COMMUNITIES
Due to the lack of warning system the response of
emergency was weak as reported and discussed in the
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previous studies [21, 9]. The strategies summarized in table most of Jordan and human alterations of the landscape to
I below are essential to eliminate risk. further increase flash flood risk, being aware of the
experiences and lessons learned during flash flood in dead
TABLE 2.: STRATEGIES OF THE VULNERABLE LOCAL COMMUNITIES sea area.
1. Generate flooding risk maps to assess planners and
Strategies Indications for evaluation decision makers for potential impact of floods to avoid.
 Flood warnings to be increased to 2. A developed web platform data and information to be
reach the most flooded areas. shared among NMHSs (National Meteorological and
Warning system &  Warning responses to be identified Hydrological Services), Authorities, civil defense
response  provide evacuation paths.
 Implement flash flood warning system
educational institutions on flash floods awareness.
based on the France experience using 3. A global meteorological data and flash flood guideline to
AIGA (method in 2017 (10). be provided, monitored based on NWP (Numerical
Weather Prediction) and now casting procedures.
4. Local authorities such as ministry of water and irrigation
 Flood insurance,
Response after the  Provide flood assistance plan to undertake spatial planning considering flash floods
flood hazards.
 warning systems and responses to be 5. Proposed flood risk mitigation plan as per Fig.17 below.
learned in schools and companies
awareness raising  Internet pages,
through learning  Accessibility of information for risk
map locations.

Mental models analysis

 Improving flash flood risk communication
and public decision making (12).

Spatial Planning  Flood damage limitation,

 Natural retention protection for catchment
area.
 Negative environmental fallout limitation
from second flood hazard.
Fig. 17. : Flood Risk Mitigation Plan

5.6. DEFINE STRUCTURAL STRATEGIES:

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