Large-scale landslide inventory and their mobility in Lvliang City, Shanxi Province, China

Abstract

Landslides are one of the most destructive geological disasters that threaten people's lives and property. With the high-resolution satellite images from Google Earth and the method of visual interpretation, we develop a large-scale landslide inventory in Lvliang City in the east of the Loess Plateau. The inventory includes a total of 12,110 landslides, and the area of each individual landslide ranges from 0.03 to 1.35 ​km2. The landslide area ratio (LAR) is used to measure the influence of several geological factors on landslides, including stratigraphic chronology, elevation and slope. From Paleozoic to Cenozoic, LAR generally shows an increasing trend. With the increase of elevation, LAR initially increases and then decreases, reaching the peak value in the elevation range of 1000–1100 ​m. With the increase of slope angle, LAR also increases first and subsequently decreases, and reaches the peak value in the range of 15–20°. In addition, we analyze the landslide mobility level (H/L) of 12,110 landslides in the study area, and observe a linear relationship between landslide height and sliding distance. Landslides with larger areas exhibit high mobility, manifested as the fact that H/L decreases with the increase of the landslide area. Meanwhile, both slope angle and aspect exert obvious effects on the mobility of landslides.