Bio
Ekta is interested in the application of satellite imagery and remote sensing to understand the impacts of natural hazards. Currently she is working as a Research Fellow at the School of Geography and Environment Science, University of Southampton on a NERC funded EVOFLOOD Project (EvoFlood – The Evolution of Global Flood Hazard and Risk). Her research focuses on global flood hazards, specifically investigating population mobility and vulnerability in flood-prone regions. Until very recently, she was pursuing her PhD as a Marie Curie Early-Stage Researcher at the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London. Her doctoral research focused on analysing human presence and flood risk in the Indus-Ganga Basin, specifically exploring the impact of floods, and rivers using night-time lights.
Abstract
The changing climate, intense rainfall, and geomorphological conditions within the Ganga Basin have led to recurring flooding within the area in the recent past causing severe loss of life and property. The occurrence of such flooding events has increased the need to understand the complex interplay between flood hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and risk. This study delves into flood risk within India’s Ganga Basin, focusing on the flood-inducing factors, vulnerability, and exposure through the application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) which is a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model. The novelty of the work is using NASA’s Black Marble Nighttime Lights as a proxy for human presence and economic activities compared to some conventional parameters for flood exposure such as population count, and household density amongst others. The study aims to capture the dynamic nature
of flood risk, driven by hydro-geomorphic controls, expanding human activities and population growth, and variations in flood resilience. The accuracy of the flood risk maps is validated using the historical flood-impacted data from the EM-DAT and GDIS databases. This research has significant implications for flood management, offering insights for developing risk mitigation strategies that transcend administrative boundaries by identifying areas of escalating flood risk.