MODELING AND WEB-BASED VISUALIZATION OF FLOOD ZONES: A CASE STUDY OF THE BUKTYRMA RIVER SECTION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37943/23KFOU5095Keywords:
flood modelling, HEC-RAS, web-GIS, NDWI, Landsat-7, Copernicus DEM, Buktyrma RiverAbstract
This study focuses on flood risk assessment in a vulnerable reach of the Buktyrma River basin, located in the East Kazakhstan region. The main goal was to develop and validate a modelling workflow that uses open-access data and software to simulate flood dynamics and visualize the results through an interactive GIS-based interface. The approach involved statistical analysis of 24 years of annual maximum discharge and water level data from gauging station to define a representative flood event. Terrain data were derived from the 30 m Copernicus Digital Elevation Model, which was used to construct the hydraulic geometry of the study area. Two-dimensional flood modeling was carried out in HEC-RAS 6.6, incorporating spatially differentiated Manning’s roughness values based on cadastral land-use classification maps.
The modeling results were verified using satellite imagery from Landsat 7 by calculating the Normalized Difference Water Index for the 2018 flood event, which had a 4 % exceedance probability. The comparison showed a high degree of agreement, indicating that the simulated flood zone overlapped 87 % with the NDWI-derived water mask, and the total inundation area differed by less than 2 %. Model outputs such as flood depth, flow velocity, and cross-sectional profiles were visualized, and the resulting flood map was uploaded within a web-GIS platform. The study demonstrates a transparent and cost-effective methodology that can be applied to other river basins in Kazakhstan, offering a practical tool for spatial planning, risk mitigation, and early warning systems based entirely on publicly available data and software.
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