A multi-criteria decision-making approach to vulnerability assessment of rural flooding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan

Assessment of rural regions' vulnerability to flooding is gaining prominence on a global scale. However, researchers are greatly undermined in their efforts to make a comprehensive assessment owing to the multidimensional and non-linear link between different indicators and flood risk. Thus, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is proposed to assess the multifaceted vulnerability of rural flooding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. This research presents a hybrid model for flood vulnerability assessment by combining TOPSIS and the entropy weight method. Households' vulnerability to flooding in rural areas is assessed through four components (social, economic, physical, and institutional) and twenty indicators. All indicator weights are derived using the entropy weight method. The TOPSIS method is then used to rank the selected research areas based on their flood vulnerability levels. The ranking results reveal that flood vulnerability is highest in the Nowshehra District, followed by the Charsadda, Peshawar, and D.I. Khan Districts. The weighting results show that physical vulnerability is the most important component, while location of household's house from the river source (< 1 km) is the key indicator for assessing flood vulnerability. A sensitivity analysis is provided to study the impact of indicator's weights on the comprehensive ranking results. The sensitivity results revealed that out of twenty indicators, fourteen indicators had the lowest sensitivity, three indicators were reported with low sensitivity while the other three were considered highly sensitive for flood vulnerability assessment. Our research has the potential to offer policymakers specific guidelines for lowering flood risk in flood-prone areas.