Assessment of Urban Flood Vulnerability: A case study of flood hazard in Kansas City, Missouri

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

2:00 PM – 2:15 PM PDT

Room: Del Mar I

Author(s)

CL

Chengye Li

Research Assistant
University of Missouri - Kansas City

Co-Author(s)

KS

Kylee Siegrist

Science and Engineering Department at the University of Missouri- Kansas City
Lauren Brunton

Company name: Science and Engineering Department at the University of Missouri- Kansas City
JL

Jejung Lee

Division of Natural and Built Environment, University of Missouri – Kansas City
ZhiQiang Chen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Science and Engineering Department at the University of Missouri- Kansas City
MR

Michael Rickey

City of Kansas City, MO Water Services Dept. Stormwater Utility
JW

James Walton

City of Kansas City, MO Water Services Dept. Stormwater Utility
WJ

Wei Ji

Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division of Natural and Built Environment School of Science and Engineering, The University of Missouri – Kansas City

Flooding has been the most common natural disaster in urban cities. The increase of urban population and urbanization make cities more vulnerable to flooding, and more people are at risk of exposure to flood hazards. To better understand urban flooding, the present study focuses on the development of a novel Flood Vulnerability Assessment System (FVAS) to help understand the city’s flood prevention and mitigation conditions in their lifecycle using a case study of Kansas City, Missouri. The FVAS adopted the vulnerability index approach to demonstrate the potential exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to flooding events by integrating physical, social, and infrastructural parameters such as vegetation, impervious surface, surface slope, flow path, manholes, sewer pipes, parks, and various census data including senior population, rental rate, income, and race. The integrated flood vulnerability indices are mapped into a watershed scale to identify the most vulnerable neighbors to potential flooding events. We compare the flood vulnerability maps to the 311 calls, the residents’ hotline for the city services provided by the Kansas City Water Service Department, for verification of the accuracy of vulnerability maps. The 311 calls are classified into four categories including drain, yard, creek, and others from the time period of 2008 -2018. The study shows that the high volume of 311 calls tends to occur in the moderate and highly vulnerable neighbors in the city. The FVAS can help city managers and planners identify the most vulnerable neighbors to potential flooding events and have a better plan of flood prevention and mitigation.