Using of Analytic Hierarchy Process for Landslide Hazard Zonation in Zanjan Province, Iran

Abstract

Landslide hazard is one of the most important geohazards that take place in Iran and other areas of world and cause damage to both property and life every year. Determination of areas with high potential to landsliding can help organizers and decision makers to improve planning of construction and landuse change. Purpose of this paper is assessment of landslide hazard zonation in Zanjan province, northwest of Iran. The GIS based landslide hazard zonation methodology presented here combines the spatial analysis tools provided by GIS with Multicriteria Analysis to evaluate the study area and classify the area, based on certain evaluation criteria. At this study slope, aspect, lithology, distance from faults, seismicity, precipitation, landuse and drainage density were taken as causal factors in landslide occurrence, and with overlaying these digitized maps a zonation map was produced. For weighting to causal factors Analytical Hierarchy Method is employed which is an effective method in multi criteria decision analysis. Finally with respect to landslide hazard susceptibility, landslide susceptibility in Zanjan province is classified into four classes.