Impact of climate change on future flood susceptibility projections under shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios in South Asia using artificial intelligence algorithms

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of climate change on flood susceptibility in six South Asian countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bharat (India), Nepal, and Pakistan—under two distinct Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios: SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-5.8, for 2041–2060 and 2081–2100. To predict flood susceptibility, we employed three artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms: the K-nearest neighbor (KNN), conditional inference random forest (CIRF), and regularized random forest (RRF). Predictions were based on data from 2452 historical flood events, alongside climatic variables measured over monthly, seasonal, and annual timeframes. The innovative aspect of this research is the emphasis on using climatic variables across these progressively condensed timeframes, specifically addressing eight precipitation factors. The performance evaluation, employing the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) metric, identified the RRF model as the most accurate, with the highest AUC of 0.94 during the testing phase, followed by the CIRF (AUC = 0.91) and the KNN (AUC = 0.86). An analysis of variable importance highlighted the substantial role of certain climatic factors, namely precipitation in the warmest quarter, annual precipitation, and precipitation during the wettest month, in the modeling of flood susceptibility in South Asia. The resultant flood susceptibility maps demonstrated the influence of climate change scenarios on susceptibility classifications, signalling a dynamic landscape of flood-prone areas over time. The findings revealed variable trends under different climate change scenarios and periods, with marked differences in the percentage of areas classified as having high and very high flood susceptibility. Overall, this study advances our understanding of how climate change affects flood susceptibility in South Asia and offers an essential tool for assessing and managing flood risks in the region. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd