Assessment of river recreation safety using hydrodynamic model and fuzzy logic: A spatial river recreational index approach

As demands for river recreational activities increases, assessing their safety has become essential to prevent accidents. The hydraulic conditions of the river critically influence the safety of in-water activities, such as sailing, paddling, and boating. Localized hazardous areas can emerge due to the spatial variability of hydraulic phenomena. This potential risk necessitates providing information about safe zones. Therefore, this study proposes a spatial river recreational index (SRRI) to assess the safety of river recreational activities over river spaces based on hydraulic factors. We reproduce the spatial distribution of the hydraulic parameters under various discharge conditions using a 3D hydrodynamic model and then estimate the SRRI by integrating all membership degrees and weights of these parameters using fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE). The application of the SRRI in the confluence of the Nakdong-Guemho River, South Korea, reveals that each hydraulic parameter contributes differently to safety levels, depending on discharge and morphological conditions. Specifically, the flow direction substantially decreases safety near the river confluence, whereas the water depth plays an important role in the meandering reach of the Nakdong River. Under high-flow conditions, velocity becomes a critical factor, especially for nonpowered activities (sailing and paddling/wading). The SRRI indicates that sailing is unsafe in the main flow zone and near the river confluence due to high sensitivity to discharge changes. In contrast, paddling/wading and leisure boating are less sensitive to discharge changes, allowing these activities to be partly allowable even under high-flow conditions, except in the deep-water zones of meandering reach. These results suggest that the SRRI can assist water recreational activity users in safely engaging in river recreational activities by providing spatial safety information based on various hydraulic conditions.