How can GIS be used to assess flood risk across a supply chain network?

• A. By geocoding facilities and routes, overlaying flood hazard layers, simulating flood extents, estimating probability-weighted damages, and prioritizing mitigation and relocation strategies.
• B. By predicting stock prices during flood events.
• C. By removing all insurance coverage to save costs.
• D. By ignoring routes and focusing only on a single facility.

Answer: (A)

GIS-based flood risk assessment across a supply chain combines precise location data with spatial hazard information to create a clear picture of where exposure and disruptions could occur. Geocoding facilities and routes places each asset and transport leg on a map, so you can see exactly which parts of the network are vulnerable. Overlaying flood hazard layers—such as historical extents, depth, duration, river stage, and flood-prone zones—onto that network reveals which facilities and links are at risk and how disruption might propagate.

Running flood scenario simulations lets you model different magnitudes and patterns of flooding, producing estimates of disruption probability for each asset and route. When you pair these probabilities with economic data, you can calculate expected losses across the network, which helps prioritize where mitigation, redundancy, or relocation would deliver the greatest risk reduction. This approach supports decisions like hardening a high-risk facility, rerouting transport, increasing inventory buffers, or diversifying suppliers, all with an eye toward reducing overall exposure and ensuring continuity.

Other options miss the point because they don’t use the spatial and network context. Predicting stock prices during floods isn’t about physical exposure or operational disruption; removing insurance coverage isn’t a risk-management strategy; and ignoring routes to focus on a single facility fails to capture interdependencies and cascading impacts across the supply chain.