Abstract

Abstract
Jhelum City is situated along river Jhelum, which is severely prone to flooding. Main road of the city, which runs parallel to river Jhelum are vulnerable even during very minor flooding. All-important offices regarding civil administration and commercial activities are concentrated along this road. The floodwaters enter the city through this road and disrupt the infrastructure in the whole city. In such a situation when the civil administrators are engaged to save their own belongings how they can protect other people from the havoc of flooding. Furthermore, due to negligence of the authorities and unplanned growth of the city, the people living in the city have harnessed the natural flow of water by constructing unnecessary embankments in the river Jhelum. Due to this reason now river Jhelum is flowing in the form of a narrow channel, which very easily over-flows during very minor flooding.

For a number of reasons the most frequent choice should be protection from the flooding by means of physical control of the river, but there is also a need for a more broader and comprehensive program for managing flood hazard in the study area. Flood protection has been helpful and must be continued. Side by side other preventive tools like effective planning for the growth of the city, creation of a computerised GIS database for the flood prone areas and a detail flood risk assessment mapping and zonation are required to minimise the harmful effects of flood hazard. Therefore, an attempt has been made to apply modern techniques like Geographical Information System (GIS) for the management of flood hazard. The presence of risk assessment mapping will help the concerned authorities to formulate their development strategies according to the available risk to the area.