Risk Assessment of Snow Disaster in Guoluo Prefecture of Southern Qinghai Province Based on GIS

Abstract

We evaluated snow disaster risk in 44 towns of Guoluo Prefecture by combining the methods of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and cluster analysis. Data were gathered from meteorological stations in Qinghai and Sichuan Provinces with GIS and RS tools. We considered snow depth, the duration of snow days, the area ratio of snow as three indicators for such evaluation, we can say Guoluo Prefecture is a higher hazard area of snow disaster. From the spatial distribution, we can see that the mild grade areas are Huashixia town in Maduo county, Zhalinghu village and Dongqinggou village, Lajia town in Maqin county; the moderate and minor severe grade areas are distributed basically in every county. And the minor severe grade areas cover almost every town in Dari county and Gande county However, the severe grade areas only distribute in Sanrima village, Tehetu village of Dari County and Dangluo village of Maqin county.