Abstract
Inventorying landslides in mountainous areas is of great importance for prevention of geologic hazards. This study aimed to establish a detailed landslide inventory of Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, China, based on a large set of high-resolution satellite images from Google Earth. The landslides of this region were divided into two groups, i.e., recent landslides and old landslides. The spatial distribution and geometric characteristics of the two kinds of landslides were analyzed, respectively. Results show that 2427 landslides are present in the study area, including 2144 recent landslides and 283 old landslides with a total area of 7.2 km2 and 97.6 km2, respectively. The recent landslides occurred primarily at steep slopes with higher elevation, while old landslides took place at gentle terrains. For the slope position, most landslides, whether old or recent, cluster near ridges. The lower boundary of the recent landslides is far away from the valley, while the accumulation area of the old landslide is closer to the valley. The H/L (height to length) ratios are basically the same for all landslides, ranging from 0.2 to 0.5. Old landslides have larger mobility, as their travel distances are longer than recent landslides at the same height. The results would be helpful for further understanding the development and spatial distribution of the landslides in Southwest China, and also provide essential support for the subsequent landslide susceptibility mapping and geologic hazard assessment in this area.
Highlights
Landslide is downslope movement of soil, rock, and organic materials under the gravity effect and the landform that results from such mass wasting [1]
It is noted that with the increase of slope, the probability density of landslides increased first and decreased, and most of the recent landslides clustered between 15–40◦, while most of the old landslides occurred on slopes with the inclination of 10–30◦
We argued that the possible reason is that the old landslides were usually deep-seated landslides of a large scale, and the local terrain changed greatly after the sliding occurrence, resulting in the slope becoming gentler in the sliding area
Summary
Landslide is downslope movement of soil, rock, and organic materials under the gravity effect and the landform that results from such mass wasting [1]. Landslides can be caused by earthquakes, rainfall, and human activity. Statistics show that the number of casualties caused by landslides reaches 4600 every year over the world [2]. Landslide inventory maps can be divided into event-based, multi-temporal and historical inventories [14,15]. An event-based inventory shows landslides caused by a triggering factor, such as an earthquake or typhoon [16,17,18,19]. Multi-temporal inventories show landslides triggered by multiple events over longer periods (e.g., years to decades) [20]
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