A review of landslides related to the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake: implication and future challenges

Abstract

It has been 15 years since the catastrophic 2005 Kashmir Mw 7.6 earthquake induced thousands of landslides in northern Pakistan and Kashmir. There have been many studies on various aspects of the landslides triggered by the earthquake, such as the mechanisms of individual large landslides, regional seismic landslide inventory mapping, spatial distribution pattern, susceptibility and hazard assessment, and landslide evolution, which provide beneficial scientific results. However, there is currently no summary and generalization of these studies for ready use of the researchers to fully understand the information of the landslide caused by the earthquake. This study comprehensively reviews and summarizes the important results obtained from published data on the landslides. The seismogenic and regional active faults, fragile lithological condition, heavy rainfall, anthropogenic activities, and steep terrain were considered as main controlling factors for the landslide occurrence. Studies on landslide evolution reveal that vegetation on most of the landslides was partially recovered after the earthquake, while slope failures along roads and drainages increased. In the affected area, landslides are still a great threat to communication networks and communities. Despite many past studies, there is still a need or in-depth research using more precise methods to understand the mechanism, hazard, and risk assessment, numerical simulation, landslide risk management and mitigation, and continuous or temporal monitoring of landslides in the affected area. Combined with high-quality data on landslides triggered by other earthquake events in recent years, the study points out the prospects of Kashmir earthquake-induced landslides and summarizes the future challenges of earthquake-triggered landslides research, including accuracy of inventories, the precision of landslide, susceptibility methods, prevention and control of landslide, and landslide hazards and risk assessment. This review can provide a reasonable scientific research and disaster prevention and mitigation strategy and scheme for landslides triggered by a large earthquake in the future.