Landslide susceptibility assessment of the Kraľovany–Liptovský Mikuláš railway case study

Abstract

The paper deals with bivariate statistical landslide susceptibility assessment for the territory of the Kraľovany–Liptovský Mikuláš railway case study. Bivariate statistical analysis with weight determination of each input parametric map, based on entropy index calculation, within the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) environment has been used, since bivariate and multivariate analyses are the most commonly used statistical methods. For the statistical assessment of landslide susceptibility, aerial entities of the main scarps were taken for bivariate analysis. The evaluated area presents an irregular buffer, delimited by the Vah River watershed, and it spreads 50 km along the railway between Kraľovany and Liptovský Mikuláš townships in the Slovak Republic. The effectiveness of landslide susceptibility assessment using GIS and statistics is based on appropriate selection of the geological factors which play a dominant role in slope stability. In this case study, five factors influencing slope stability are evaluated – lithology, slope aspect, slope angle, hypsographic level and actual landuse. These factors were prepared in vector form (parametric maps) and subsequently processed to the raster form. Bivariate statistical analysis was used to construct the final prognostic landslide susceptibility map.