GEOSPATIAL APPROACH FOR ASSESSMENT OF VULNERABILITY TO FLOODS IN T/A JUMA MULANJE DISTRICT, SOUTHERN MALAWI

Due to climate change and high population growth the occurrences of floods has
significantly increase globally, with an impact on habitation and different sectors of
the social life and economy. This, in turn, necessitates the use of different flood
mitigation strategies, wherein flood vulnerability assessment plays a significant role.
The proposed work presents a methodology that combines vulnerability under
physical-environmental and socio-economic domains to assess the overall flood
vulnerability. The methodology was applied to the case of traditional authority
Juma, located on the banks of Thuchila river, in Mulanje district, Malawi. The
spatial variation of hazard inducing factors and population statistics were analysed
using Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. The geographical information
system’s (GIS) multi-criterial decision analysis (MCDA) approach was implemented
to analyse both social economic vulnerability and physical environmental
vulnerability of the area with criteria weights to incorporate the interests of
different stakeholders. The critical combinations of the two domains of
vulnerability in the assessment of the vulnerability to flood, to have efficient flood
management in the study area was demonstrated in this study and can be made use
of for any flood event. The flood vulnerability greatly depends on
physical/environmental factors and combination with socio-economic indices gives
more realistic results. The final vulnerability map shows the variation in term of
vulnerability levels to floods.