Landslide hazard zonation using analytical hierarchy process along National Highway-3 in mid Himalayas of Himachal Pradesh, India

Landslide zonation studies emphasize on preparation of landslide hazard zonation maps considering major instability factors contributing to occurrence of landslides. This paper deals with geographic information system-based landslide hazard zonation in mid Himalayas of Himachal Pradesh from Mandi to Kullu by considering nine relevant instability factors to develop the hazard zonation map. Analytical hierarchy process was applied to assign relative weightages over all ranges of instability factors of the slopes in study area. To generate landslide hazard zonation map, layers in geographic information system were created corresponding to each instability factor. An inventory of existing major landslides in the study area was prepared and combined with the landslide hazard zonation map for validation purpose. The validation of the model was made using area under curve technique and reveals good agreement between the produced hazard map and previous landslide inventory with prediction accuracy of 79.08%. Thelandslide hazard zonation map was classified by natural break classifier into very low hazard, low hazard, moderate hazard, high hazard and very high landslide hazard classes in geographic information system depending upon the frequency of occurrence of landslides in each class. The resultant hazard zonation map shows that 14.30% of the area lies in very high hazard zone followed by 15.97% in high hazard zone. The proposed model provides the best-fit classification using hierarchical approach for the causative factors of landslides having complex structure. The developed hazard zonation map is useful for landslide preparedness, land-use planning, and social-economic and sustainable development of the region.