The Analysis of the Impact of Land-Use Changes on Flood Exposure of Wuhan in Yangtze River Basin, China

This paper characterizes the land-use changes of Wuhan in Yangtze River Basin between 1954 and 2020, and its impact on flood exposure. Using Landsat TM images, the study draws four land-use maps which refer to the years 1954, 1982, 2000 and 2020, to explore the spatial and temporal distribution of land-use changes, particularly concerning the distribution of urban areas near the Yangtze River Basin. This was followed by an analysis of the land-use changes during the 4 study periods, and a set of four levels of flood exposure are used to analyze the flood exposure of urban areas of Wuhan. The result shows that the extensive land-use changes have a negative impact on the flood exposure of Wuhan during the last two decades. Finally, this paper provides a quantitative analysis of the correlation between flood exposure and flood damage (using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient). The analysis indicates that there is an significant positive correlation between flood exposure and flood damage (or economic losses caused by floods), but the correlations between flood exposure and the number of people affected is different with previous assumptions. This paper is an initial effort to quantitatively analyze the impact of land-use changes on flood exposure of Wuhan in Yangtze River Basin, which can be used by stakeholders of the developing countries to develop contingency land-use plans to reduce the urban flood exposure and to address and prevent the damage and casualties caused by flood disasters. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014