Role of Hydro GIS Tools in Hydrological Modelling and Urban Flood Management: A Literature Review

Abstract

Hydrological modelling and urban floods have a strong relationship as flood management is based on hydrological calculation. GIS assists this relation by providing an easy environment to carry out difficult and time-consuming steps of hydrological calculations. However, when developing automated GIS tools for the above process, there are no guidelines available to manage the software project easily. Then developing a comprehensive guideline requires to clearly understand of the role of GIS in the urban flood and hydrological modelling relation. The present work carried out an in- depth study on; flood, land management, hydrological modelling and GIS assistance to hydrological modelling to understand the role of hydro GIS tools in urban flood management. It used the semisystematic literature review method to review the gathered knowledge. Through the analysis, it found a close relationship between flood and land management, specially in urban areas. Further, it found that now GIS is assisting in performing the major functions of hydrological models than the inception, and the HydroGIS term has been introduced to identify the software tools that assist flood management through hydrology modelling. Further, it has been understood that HydroGIS tools are employed in local-level flood management activities and utilised by non-technical decision-makers for day-to-day activities. Hence the HydroGIS tools can be introduced to the local level authorities as an interface to perform complex hydrological processes when land management decision-making.