Abstract
Abstract. Land use and land cover change can increase or decrease landslide susceptibility (LS) in the mountainous areas. In the hilly and mountainous part of southwestern China, land use and land cover change (LUCC) has taken place in the last decades due to infrastructure development and rapid economic activities. This development and activities can worsen the slope susceptible to sliding due to mostly the cutting of slopes. This study, taking Zhushan Town, Xuan'en County, as the study area, aims to evaluate the influence of land use and land cover change on landslide susceptibility at a regional scale. Spatial distribution of landslides was determined in terms of visual interpretation of aerial photographs and remote sensing images, supported by field surveys. Two types of land use and land cover (LUC) maps, with a time interval covering 21 years (1992–2013), were prepared: the first was obtained by the neural net classification of images acquired in 1992 and the second by the object-oriented classification of images in 2002 and 2013. Landslide-susceptible areas were analyzed using the logistic regression model (LRM) in which six influencing factors were chosen as the landslide susceptibility indices. In addition, the hydrologic analysis method was applied to optimize the partitioning of the terrain. The results indicated that the LUCC in the region was mainly the transformation from the grassland and arable land to the forest land, which is increased by 34.3 %. An increase of 1.9 % is shown in the area where human engineering activities concentrate. The comparison of landslide susceptibility maps among different periods revealed that human engineering activities were the most important factor in increasing LS in this region. Such results emphasize the requirement of a reasonable land use planning activity process.
Highlights
Landslide constitutes one of the most hazardous geomorphic processes in the mountainous areas (Harris et al, 2001; Karsli et al, 2009), which can result in serious injuries, human casualties, and cause environmental and economic damages every year (Fell et al, 2008; García-Ruiz et al, 2010)
This study revealed the evolution of LUC and how LUC change affected landslide susceptibility at a regional scale
Through the analysis of different LUC maps with a 21-year time interval obtained from remote sensing images, it documented the rapid growth of the afforestation as well as the intense urbanization process in the region since the 1990s: the areas of forest land and human engineering activities between 1992 and 2013 increased by 34.3 % and 1.9 %, whereas the areas of the grassland and arable land decreased by 15.7 % and those of the barren land decreased by 20.5 %
Summary
Landslide constitutes one of the most hazardous geomorphic processes in the mountainous areas (Harris et al, 2001; Karsli et al, 2009), which can result in serious injuries, human casualties, and cause environmental and economic damages every year (Fell et al, 2008; García-Ruiz et al, 2010). It is, necessary to take landslide hazard into account for public safety and the realization of safe engineering projects (Fell et al, 2008; Gioia et al, 2015). Chen et al.: The influence of land use and land cover change on landslide susceptibility
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