Assessing drought vulnerability using geospatial techniques in northwestern part of Bangladesh

Muhammad Al-Amin Hoque; Biswajeet Pradhan; Naser Ahmed

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135957

Assessing drought vulnerability using geospatial techniques in northwestern part of Bangladesh

Sci Total Environ. 2020 Feb 25:705:135957. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135957. Epub 2019 Dec 5.

Authors

Muhammad Al-Amin Hoque¹, Biswajeet Pradhan², Naser Ahmed³

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Advanced Modelling and Geospatial Information Systems, Faculty of Engineering and IT, The University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia; Department of Geography and Environment, Jagannath University, Dhaka 1100, Bangladesh. Electronic address: MuhammadAl-Amin.Hoque@uts.edu.au.
² Centre for Advanced Modelling and Geospatial Information Systems, Faculty of Engineering and IT, The University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia; Department of Energy and Mineral Resources Engineering, Sejong University, Choongmu-gwan, 209 Neungdong-ro,Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: Biswajeet.Pradhan@uts.edu.au.
³ Department of Geography and Environment, Jagannath University, Dhaka 1100, Bangladesh.

PMID: 31841918
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135957

Abstract

Drought is a damaging and costly natural disaster that frequently affects many climatic regions in the world. A multi-criteria-based approach for integrated spatial drought vulnerability mapping that combines all drought categories is required to generate detailed vulnerability information for formulating drought mitigation strategies. This study presents a spatial multi-criteria integrated approach for mapping comprehensive drought vulnerability using geospatial techniques and an analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The developed approach was applied in the northwestern region of Bangladesh to justify its applicability. A total of 17 criteria under 4 drought categories, namely, meteorological, agricultural, hydrological and socio-economic, were selected. Moreover, spatial layers for each criterion were developed. AHP was used to calculate the weights for each criterion and drought types using pair-wise comparison matrices. Individual categories of drought and overall drought vulnerability maps were developed using the weighted overlay technique by integrating the corresponding criteria. The produced maps effectively defined the spatial extents and levels (e.g. normal, mild, moderate, severe and extreme) of drought vulnerability. Results demonstrated that approximately 77% of the total area of the north-western region of Bangladesh was moderately to extremely vulnerable to drought. The output of the developed approach was successfully validated using the receiver operating characteristics and area under the curve techniques. The findings suggest that the proposed approach is highly effective in mapping comprehensive drought vulnerability for formulating strong drought mitigation strategies.

Keywords: Analytical hierarchy process; Drought; GIS; Remote sensing; Vulnerability.