Journal of Geography  & Natural Disasters
Open Access

Abstract

Susceptibility Assessment of landslide Using AHP and Weighted Overlay Method, along Lower Topa-Kohala Bridge Portion of N-75 highway, Punjab, Pakistan

Qaiser Mehmood, Wang Qing, Nasrullah, Muhammad Jaffar, Gohar Rahman

Landslides are extensive and dangerous geological disaster processes that cause a number of casualties and economic losses around the world. Hence it has become the subject of interest to many researchers in different scientific disciplines. Murree is a popular tourist destination in Pakistan and because of inept geology, steep terrain, rising day-to-day urbanization, erosion, erratic land-use activities, and excessive rainfall in the rainy season triggering landslides in the Murree. A lot of socio-economic damages are triggered by regular landslides in the region. Therefore, mapping of the landslide susceptible region is essential for the local communities and government units. In the current study, landslide susceptibility assessment of the Lower Topa to Kohala bridge portion of N-75 highway (which is the only route to connect Pakistan with AJK) is done using GIS and Remote sensing techniques based on field investigation and previous literature. Nine causing factors including slope, aspect, curvature, lithology, normalised differentiation vegetation index, rainfall, distance from fault, road, and streams were analyzed. Weights were allocated to individual causative variables on the basis of their influencing power to the landslide initiation using AHP method. All the causative factors were merged into a single assessment index to produce research area susceptibility map using AHP command tool and Weighted Overlay Method in ArcGIS. The obtained map by AHP command tool shows high to very high 57%, moderate 19% and low to very low 24% while Weighted Overlay Method (WOM) shows high to very high 30%, moderate 49% and low to very low 21% landslide susceptibility of the overall area. The AHP command tool shows higher accuracy rate of 0.87 in the AUC technique. These landslide susceptibility maps will demonstrate to be a collection of awareness on dynamic and potential landslides for residents, engineers, and land-use authorities to reduce the destruction induced by landslides

Published Date: 2022-07-28; Received Date: 2022-06-28