Flooding do affect vulnerable citizens in the community and mostly affected by the impact of rainfall.
There are various tools and approaches to address flooding. The fruits of pertinent data collection is apt to include soils, geology, land use, hydrology, meteorology, plant and tree cover types and past flooding history, stream and rainfall records, stream channel types, designation of floodplains, aerial photos, topographic maps and perhaps other information. when dealing with a community, don’t forget to talk to the wise elders and search for flood watermarks or survey markers. Much can be learned by identifying stream types and changes from sediment aggradation or degradation. Much is known in general from small catchment to watershed studies about the effects and benefits of forests and grasslands, and the changes that land use as well as channel modifications brings. Todays technology brings such information from Doppler coverage that can help estimate rainfall position, timing and some degree of quantification that can help serve as early warning and help consider whether and to what extent evacuation might be needed. Houses in floodzones might be elevated and placed on piers, or perhaps moved away from the flood zone. It would be helpful to have a hydrologist and engineer included in your planning, and help with educating and getting community involvement for action in case of flood warnings, and how rapid the flood response is likely to be. There is much to learn and translate so the community can be informed and make decisions. Other mitigations might include such things as more careful forest management, conservation farming practices, etc.
I did not mention about after a flood. There are many things to attend to. Safe facilities as roads, safe drinking water, waste disposal, cleanup of damaged houses, potential for mold in saturated building materials, food and other supplies may be damaged or lost, communications to the outside country and world fo help, who to contact for flood relief, any life saving or human recovery needs, dealing with pets and animals affected, evaluating flood damage, closing, repairing unsafe conditions or structures. The more remote the community, the greater may be the need to have a plan as without outside knowledge of conditions, help may not be automatically coming.
The best way is to reduce flood disaster risk. Flood is a hazard, while flood disaster is a consequence of the vulnerability of communities. In order to reduce flood disaster risks, you need to increase the capacity of the communities to meet flood hazards. Capacity is a state of preparedness, which shows how people are ready to meet hazards. The best way is to mainstream disaster risks into the development planning. Also, you may read my book "Community-based disaster risk management in Azerbaijan", (included in the research list) , where you may find informaiton baout the vulnerability factors.
Mainly focus on non-structural mitigation measures like flood forecasting, flood insurance and landuse planning. There are many related studies and reports to cover the mentioned issue.
I would like to share my experience regarding in connection of every year flood in cities and rural areas. Flood is now common every where and every year because, we have destroyed all our traditional water harvesting structures existed in rural as well as in urban areas, previously these structures use to control or minimise impact of flood, now no water bodies left in rural areas, all are converted in agricultural field or for some other uses. Other factor is construction of Cement Concrete roads and other area ( modern development), which not allowing water to enter in to soil, ultimately remain on earth as a runoff in form of flood.
If we can revive / rejuvenate our tradition water bodies along with improvement /cleaning of drainage line, existing in catchment. Then only problem of flood can be solved near future upto some extend.
forecasting models such as IDF, AEP is a good starting point, GIS vulnerability mapping 🗺️🗾 using buffering can also be relevant for mitigation... In addition soil analysis can help understand the physical characteristics of the soil and it's behavior in response to flooding...