Regional flood resilience grading based on GEM-AHPSort II method: An objective and managerial factors integrated perspective

Flood resilience is the principal capability of the flood-affected areas to quickly eliminate the impact of floods. Motivated by the realistic demand of improving the regional flood resilience and reducing negative hazards caused by flood, regional flood resilience evaluation is carried out from the perspective of objective and managerial factors in this paper. Firstly, a novel Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method G1-EW-MGLA (GEM)-AHPSort II method is proposed by combining AHPSort II method, G1-EW method, and MGLA method. Secondly, the evaluation indicator system of regional flood resilience is constructed from the perspective of objective and managerial factors. Subsequently, the proposed method and indicator system were applied to the case of flood resilience evaluation in Hubei Province, China. The case study analysis results show that in the 17 regions involved in the evaluation, the number of regions with “medium-low resilience” and “low resilience” is close to half, and the flood resilience of the regions with high economic development tends to be a higher level. In addition, under the same case data, the evaluation results of the proposed GEM-AHPSort II method are compared against the EW-AHPSort II method and AHPSort II method. The indicator weights determination process of GEM-AHPSort II method has been improved compared with the other two methods, and the evaluation results are more practical. Finally, some management suggestions for effectively improving the regional flood resilience and reducing flood hazards were put forward. This paper can provide a reference for the government to formulate or improve relevant flood protection strategies.