Flood hazard mapping in the town of Fez: From hydrological modeling to hydraulic simulation

Résumé

As many Moroccan cities, the town of Fez is highly threatened by floods. To this, the map of flood hazard is a primary tool to orient and plan the management of flood risks related to this hazard. This work presents the cartographic results obtained applying hydrological and hydraulic modeling methods. The hydrological modeling, with the HEC-HMS software, allowed us to simulate the hydrological behaviors of the Oued Fes watershed, even in the absence of hydrometrical data. Furthermore, in order to obtain a spatial representation of different grades of hazard, hydraulic modeling, with the HEC-RAS software, produced some simulations of floods depending on their frequencies and intensities. Both softwares are interacting with the SIG ArcMAP© through the extensions HEC-geoHMS and HEC-geoRAS. This interoperability allowed us to obtain a good cartographic representation of flood hazard in the city of Fez, illustrated with the case of oued El Mahraz.