Application of fuzzy combination operators to flood vulnerability assessments in Seoul,Korea

The goal of this study was to apply, verify and compare fuzzy models with various fuzzy combination operators to analyze the vulnerability to flooding in Seoul, Korea, and to create flood vulnerability maps. We employed the IPCC concept of vulnerability, which comprises exposure to climate, sensitivity and the adaptive capacity, to identify factors that influence flooding. Eleven factors were compiled in a spatial database using geographical information system. The relative weight of each factor was converted into a fuzzy membership value, which was integrated to obtain a flood vulnerability index using five fuzzy combination operators (fuzzy AND, fuzzy OR, fuzzy algebraic sum, fuzzy algebraic product and fuzzy gamma). Overall, the fuzzy models were quite effective tools for flood vulnerability assessment. Of the five fuzzy combination operators, the fuzzy AND operator obtained the highest prediction accuracy of 88.68%. This study achieved better flood vulnerability assessments by employing and comparing fuzzy combination operators.