Flood risk modeling for optimal rice planning for delta region of Mahanadi river basin in India

Flood risk management serves to reduce the negative consequences of flood disaster to a certain extent. In agriculture-dominated countries, the extent of damage incurred in crop land by heavy and frequent floods is quite high. The present study aims to develop an optimal rice planning procedure considering the flood risk through hydrodynamic floodplain modeling in flood-prone delta region of Mahanadi river basin in India. As high-resolution topographic data and surveyed river cross sections are unavailable for the study area, MIKE FLOOD model setup is prepared using river cross sections and floodplain elevation model derived from freely available SRTM DEM. In this study, MIKE FLOOD setup is prepared and flood inundation simulation is carried out. Flood inundation extent obtained is compared with RADARSAT-1 image-based inundation extent. Subsequently, flood risk is evaluated for cropping pattern in floodplains using functional relationships between flood characteristics and the expected damage of different rice varieties. Based on the flood risk, an optimal rice planning model is developed for maximizing the net benefits in the floodplain. The average annual expected net benefit of optimal rice allocation model for the study area is to the tune of INR 601 million compared to INR 432 million for normal rice variety cultivation throughout the study area. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015