Determinng the Flood-Prone Areas in the City of Aqaba Using Modern Geography

Abstract

This study is a scientific approach to identify the occurrence mechanism of  floods and flash floods in Aqaba city, by creating a function map for the major places that are prone to floods and torrential rains in the season of heavy  rain, so that the main object of  the study is creating a production map of flooding areas, which has already been produced through digital modeling of  factors affecting data of flood using GIS, the spatial and geo-spatial data have been collected from elevation digital image of ASTR satellite with ground resolution around 10 meters.

The map function showed  that there are about 15% of the study area  is under the threat of floods, based on geomorphological, hydrological data  the natural causes of flooding have been addressed for the study area, where it was noted that the eastern highlands of Aqaba city which considered geomorphologically as Basin rocky collected rainwater, in which abound tributary valleys that branches estuaries toward Gulf Aqaba. When heavy rains occur, the water starts to mix with sand and valleys sediment and it became highly saturated, and therefore began to move across the valleys to west direction of  Aqaba city