Abstract:
Background: Flood is one of the most destructive natural disasters of climate change effects in West Africa. Flood
risk occurrence is a combination of natural and anthropogenic factors, which calls for a better understanding of its
spatial extent. The aim of this paper is to identify, and map areas of flood risk in Abidjan district.
Results: This work is based on the integration of multi-criteria data including slope, drainage density, type of soil,
Isohyet, population density, land use and sewer system density within ArcGIS interface. The resulting AHP flood risk
map shows that areas under high and very high flood risk covers 34 % of the study area.
Conclusion: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method used as a multi-criteria analysis allowed the integration
of several elements under two criteria, hazards and vulnerability, for flood risk assessment and mapping. Results
revealed that, Abidjan district is heavily exposed to the risk of flooding. Eight out of thirteen (8/13) municipalities
within the district are at a high risk of flooding which calls for decision makers to effectively develop strategies for
future flood occurrences within the Abidjan district (South of Côte d’Ivoire).
