An Overview of Recent Developments in Landslide Vulnerability Assessment-Presentation of a New Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Open image in new window Landslides are one of the most destructive natural disasters, responsible for significant loss of life and livestock as well as damage to critical infrastructure, agricultural lands, housing and assets in mountainous regions. Despite all the recent technical progress towards landslide forecasting and mitigation, human activities are still affected by landslide disasters. Hence, assessment of landslide risk and vulnerability becomes an important aspect in all landslide studies. Vulnerability is a fundamental component in the evaluation of risk, and its estimation is essential in making a reasonable prediction of the landslide consequences. Most of the approaches applied for carrying out landslide risk assessment have inherent limitations. In most countries, there are no standard parameters and hence landslide risk assessment is still in its developing stage. The assessment of risk of communities prone to landslide is a topic that is gaining importance. In the field of landslide research, most of the studies have been focused on the landslide hazards maps. But, only a few studies have discussed on the risk and vulnerability aspects. This paper summarizes previous research on risk and vulnerability assessment and also discusses different methods suitable for estimating vulnerability of various elements to landslides. In addition, it proposes a conceptual framework for the assessment of landslide hazard and vulnerability, and mapping procedures for risk assessment.