Assessing Urban Community Resilience to Flood Using a Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach: A Case of Guwahati City, Assam, India

Each year, the intensity and frequency of extreme hydrological and meteorological events (EHCE) (particularly floods) are rising. Urban areas in low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected due to infrastructural deficiencies and prevalent poor flood management practices. Flooding in an urban context requires a better understanding of the associated risks and achieving resilience to improve flood management plans. A novel approach to estimating urban flood resilience at the ward level is demonstrated here. To build community resilience to flood risk, this study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach (combining objective and subjective methods) in aiding the decision-making process at the micro-scale or ward-level in the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) area by taking the case of Guwahati city, in the state of Assam of India. Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) is conducted with government officials, flood management experts, and members of the community to assign weights to Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC) indicators and as an input for the hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). The hybrid approach comprises the objective entropy weight method and the subjective decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method. A total of 30 relevant indicators are chosen from a set of 44, out of which robust drainage system (C21), disaster response budget (C2), and social inclusiveness (C30) received the highest comprehensive weights of 0.150, 0.140, and 0.130 respectively showing that these three shall be highly prioritized in the future flood risk management plans for the study area. VIKOR (Visekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) method assigns the ward scores to three selected wards in the GMC area. The results are consistent with the ground reports and the latest flood reports provided by the state government. This study gives a hybrid approach to estimate urban flood resilience at ward-level by utilizing the knowledge of indicators to improve the existing and develop future flood risk-resilience management plans.