Abstract—The study examined the flood vulnerability levels of communities in Bayelsa State, Nigeria with a view to employing Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) techniques which makes use of GISbased overlay analysis to determine spatial flood vulnerability levels. The study considered the landuse, elevation, soil texture and proximity to active river channels as factors determining flood vulnerability. The components of these factors were reclassified as low, moderate and high vulnerabilities with assigned numbers of 1, 2 and 3 respectively using the ranking method. All the maps were overlaid using the UNION module which made it possible to detect different flood vulnerability levels. The analysis showed that the areas that have low vulnerability to flood were 2020.40 km2 (12.9%) of the entire area. The moderate vulnerability areas covered a spatial extent of 9342.04 km2 (59.8%), while high vulnerability areas covered 4248.95 km2 (27.3%) in the overlay of communities on the flood vulnerability levels of Bayelsa State. Findings revealed that 43 (14.98%) communities including Agbalamabugokiri, Agberi, Akassa, Bisagbene, Bolougbene, Bwama, Orukiri, Otokolopiri, Spiffs Town, Tomkiri and Twon had low flood vulnerability levels. The communities with moderate vulnerability feature were about 287 (73.78%) which included Abagbene, Abulabiri Agudama, Aziama, Brass, Burukiri, Ebelibiri, Ekeremor, Fangbe, Gbaran, Karama, Nembe, Ogboinbiri, Ogbomama, Opuama, Tombia, and Uruama. However, 59 (15.17%) of the entire communities were highly vulnerable to flood in Bayelsa State. Among these communities included Abolikiri, Akaba, Amarara, Biogbolo, Ekeki, Okokokiri, Okpokiri, Okpoma, Polaku, Swali, Tuluama, Yenagoa and Yenezue-Epie. The study concluded that higher proportion parts of Bayelsa State are vulnerable to flood and it is recommended that regular flood assessment should be encouraged in Bayelsa State; and the communities with high and moderate vulnerability to flood should be provided with adequate preparedness in case of any flood disaster.

Index Terms—Flood vulnerability, GIS, Land use, soil texture, Elevation, River channels, Bayelsa State

Cite:Berezi O. K., Obafemi A. A., and Nwankwoala H. O., "Flood Vulnerability Assessment of Communities in the Flood Prone Areas of Bayelsa State, Nigeria," International Journal of Geology and Earth Science, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 19-36, September 2019.