2025 Volume 13 Issue 2 Article ID: 24-16118
Heavy rainfall in arid regions has been increasing recently and can have devastating effects, especially in light of the climate change impacts. Therefore, predicting flash flood-prone areas is essential for proactive disaster management. This study aims to develop hazard maps over Saudi Arabia (KSA) based on historical precipitation dataset and projected future precipitation data of D4PDF. The spatial and temporal extreme rainfall patterns historically and future changes based on D4PDF climatic data were developed by investigating the present rainfall trends for the period of 2000–2011 and future rainfall trends for the period of 2031–2100. Frequency of the rainfall events exceeding different threshold (30, 40, 50mm) was analyzed. The trend analysis was conducted for the extreme events historically and in the future scenarios. The results shows that more extreme rainfall events are expected to occur in the central, eastern, and western regions of Saudi Arabia. In general, high variability trends have been observed in these regions from historical to future trends analysis. The results of hazard maps developed by using RRI model with maximum rainfall events in both history and future scenarios for three regions over KSA (Madinah, Central regions, and Jazan), showed that both Madinah and Central regions are no significant change from historical to future, however, Jazan show an extreme increasing in the hazard impacts more than 100%. The outcomes of this study can be used by decision maker in Saudi Arabia to implement mitigation measures for flash flood risk reduction.
