Abstract
Spatial distribution of natural disaster risk has been taking as a reference in urban planning and disaster management. Especially to the remote mountainous areas located in southwestern China where landslide disaster could cause enormous damage. In those areas, only few exposure researches could reveal disaster risk and exposure distribution which related to landslide occurrence since lack of landslide indicator information. This research aimed at combining landslide risk mapping with highly exposure mapping to reveal distribution of highly landslide exposure in a remote mountainous area: Panzhihua basin, Yangtze River, China. In this research, 203 landslide point data (103 occurrences and 100 absences) were collected based on governmental landslide inventory and fieldwork to build CART (Classification and Regression Tree) model, which was applied to investigate the relationship between landslide disaster and four independent variables (vegetation, elevation, slope and top soil type). Finally, we developed a landslide-prone hazard map based on transportation, threatened population and property distribution to illustrate potential socioeconomic damage of landslide occurrence. The output maps show that landslide-prone area basically follows valley stretch and Yangtze Rivers. Northeastern and center zone in study area are classified with higher risk to generate landslide disaster. Threaten population and property exposure shows similar distribution in northeastern and northwestern areas while detached in center and southeastern areas. To the transportation sector, there are 75.3km of local road, 8.6km of main road, 29.5km of railway and 39.2km of national highway are highly exposed to landslide occurrence respectively.
Highlights
Landslide is one of the most frequent disasters which occurred in mountainous areas
Landslide occurrence could cut down both roads and air transportation which were regarded as lifeblood to remote mountainous areas
This study aims at providing spatial distribution information to local policy maker which will benefit landslide risk mitigation policy, urban planning and infrastructure construction in a clear way
Summary
Landslide is one of the most frequent disasters which occurred in mountainous areas. In the up-stream basin of Yangtze River, landslides became one of the major natural hazards because of geological feature and climate characteristics that could make it sensitive to landslide disaster. Numerical factories were built in the river basin area for resource exploitation. As a riverside city of Yangtze River, Panzhihua city is extremely vulnerable to landslide risk. Landslide occurrences of this city have caused enormous loss of life and property damage in the past years. Landslide occurrence could cut down both roads and air transportation which were regarded as lifeblood to remote mountainous areas. Landslide is considered a serious disaster which needs to be put on spot point of natural disaster management of study area
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have