Landslides are among the most prevalent and harmful hazards. Assessment of landslide susceptibility zonation is an important task in reducing the losses of lifeand properties. The present study aims to demarcate the landslide prone areas along the Vathalmalai Ghat road section (VGR) using remote sensing and GIS techniques. In the first step, the landslide causative factors such as geology, geomorphology, slope, slope aspect, land use / land cover, drainage density, lineament density, road buffer and relative relief were assessed. All the factors were assigned to rank and weight based on the slope stability of the landslide susceptibility zones. Then the thematic maps were integrated using ArcGIS tool and landslide susceptibility zonation was obtained and classified into five categories ; very low, low, moderate, high and very high. The landslide susceptibility map is validated with R-index and landslide inventory data collected from the field using GPS measurement. The distribution of susceptibility zones is ; 16.5% located in very low, 28.70% in low, 24.70% in moderate, 19.90% in high and 10.20% in very high zones. The R-index indicated that about 64% landslide occurences correlated with high to very high landslide susceptiblity zones. The model validation indicated that the method adopted in this study is suitable for landslide disaster mapping and planning.
Supplementary material to "LAND-SUITE V1.0: a suite of tools for statistically-based landslide susceptibility zonation"
