ABSTRACTHimalaya foothill geo-environment is highly vulnerable for flood disaster due to climate change and dynamic upstream hydrological process which reshaped its downstream foothill geomorphology. Rapid urbanization has caused high rate of land-use change and natural resource degradation, enhancing the vulnerability of flood disaster in the region. The Ramnagar Himalayan Foothill area in Nainital district, Uttarakhand, India, has been selected for the case illustration. The key objective of the study was to investigate spatial dynamics of flood disaster risk due to climate change and rapid urbanization in the region. Development and integration of multiple GIS modules advocate that the extreme flood events have been increasing with the rate of four events/year due to climate change (i.e. increasing temperature and excessive rainfall events by 0.03 °C/year and two events/year, respectively). The fast urbanization and development of new colonies have caused to increase in built-up area (with 1.25% annually) and population density (with 87 persons/km2 annually) under different flood hazard zones. Consequently, 29% area of very low flood disaster risk zone has been converted into moderate (6%), high (8%), and very high flood disaster risk zones (15%) at the annual rate of 0.31%, 0.40%, and 0.77%, respectively.
