Abstract
Flash flood often causes serious losses in small catchments of China. Nevertheless, the flash flood vulnerability assessment is relatively limited in China. This paper presented a material flow assessment framework to evaluate the flash flood vulnerability for small catchments in Wuzhishan County of Hainan province, China. The framework was developed into three parts: selection of typical villages and small catchments, calculation of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity with material flow analysis, and multiple evaluation of vulnerability with the proposed material flow indices. In this framework, all material flows of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity were measured by water’s mass. Then, the relationship between the three elements of vulnerability was established through material flow indices. Results of the three elements of vulnerability and four material flow indices in each small catchment were exhibited via GIS. The evaluation results suggested that catchments with lower exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity did not necessarily lead to lower vulnerability, as the inherent relationship among them might aggravate the vulnerability of catchments to flash flood. Some suggestions were put forward for the prevention of flash flood based on the vulnerability assessment. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the approach were discussed.
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Acknowledgements
The research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51509179, 51679159), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0401903), Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51621092) and Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (B14012). The authors acknowledge the assistance of anonymous reviewers.
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Lian, J., Yang, W., Xu, K. et al. Flash flood vulnerability assessment for small catchments with a material flow approach. Nat Hazards 88, 699–719 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2887-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2887-2