Flooding is the most catastrophic natural disaster, resulting from sudden, extensive, and persistent rainfall that causes socio-economic and environmental consequences. Therefore, effective flood management is crucial for mitigating the impact of floods on individuals and their livelihoods. The foremost objective of the present research is to identify flood susceptibility zones and create a flood susceptibility map (FSM) of the Malaprabha Basin using frequency ratio (FR) and statistical index (SI) models. A comprehensive flood inventory map was created using 296 flood locations. Out of these, 207 (70%) flood locations were randomly selected for use as training data, while the remaining 89 (30%) sites for validation. Flood risk modeling was performed using eleven flood control factors (FCF), such as elevation, slope, aspect, curvature, the topographic wetness index (TWI), stream power index (SPI), rainfall, proximity to rivers, stream density, soil types, and land use/land cover (LULC). Subsequently, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were derived, and an area under the curves (AUC) was computed for the FR and SI models. A comparative evaluation of the FR and SI models revealed that the SI model demonstrates greater accuracy for the Malaprabha Basin, as evidenced by its higher success rate (82.76%) than the FR model (80.60%). The results of this research are crucial for managing flood hazards and beneficial to local disaster management authorities, researchers, planners, and local government officials involved in flood risk management in the Malaprabha Basin.