Abstract
Landslide is frequently occurring natural phenomenon causing land degradation in mountainous region of the world. The fragile Himalayan terrain of Uttarakhand often faces challenging and tough situation due to landslides, particularly in monsoon season. Change in rainfall pattern, anthropogenic activity, deforestation, construction on old landslide debris and Quaternary deposits and displacement of habitation from hill side to valley side are some significant increasing factors for the landslide susceptibility. Anthropogenic activities include very fast, unscientific and uncontrolled urbanization and these are considerably responsible to carved out the disaster viz., landslide, cloudburst and flash flood. Habitation and infrastructure development initiatives in close proximity of streams and rivers as also over Quaternary deposits and unplanned disposal of excavated rock and debris are observed to aggravate the fury of both, landslides and flash floods in the region. Mostly in monsoon season frequent disruption of road network by landslides cause hardship to tourists and pilgrims along with local people. During monsoon season torrential rainfall and cloudburst events are common which acts as basic factor for triggering the landslides in the area. It is therefore necessary to analyse the causes of landslides so as to suggest viable mitigation measures. The paper outlines slope instability and factors responsible for the landslide susceptibility in upper Alaknanda valley, Uttarakhand, India.
Highlights
Landslides are one of the most common and widespread natural hazards that affect at least 15% of the land area of our country, an area which exceeds 0.49 million km2
Present study is an attempt to analyse the causes of landslides in the catchment of upper Alaknanda valley that meets Bhagirathi River at Devprayag to form Ganga River
The area under investigation lies in the upper Alaknanda valley that falls in lesser and Higher Himalayan terrain of Uttarakhand Himalaya (Figure 1)
Summary
Landslides are one of the most common and widespread natural hazards that affect at least 15% of the land area of our country, an area which exceeds 0.49 million km. Present study is an attempt to analyse the causes of landslides in the catchment of upper Alaknanda valley that meets Bhagirathi River at Devprayag to form Ganga River. The study is initiated with the mapping of landslides in the upper Alaknanda valley and the same is followed by the correlation of these with different natural and man-made feature to assess the influence of these on the occurrence of landslides. This is intended to help in formulating of a viable strategy for minimising the menace of landslides. Losses due to landslides and flash floods in Uttarakhand in 2010, 2012 and 2013 testify this fact (Table 1)
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