Detection of Efficient Landslide Inventory Mapping in Western Ghats regions of Karnataka, India

This study presents a comprehensive approach to landslide inventory mapping in the Western Ghats region of Karnataka, India, focusing on the 2018 Monsoon landslide event. Leveraging both Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and field surveys, we aimed to generate a robust and complete inventory by adopting a collaborative mapping strategy. Two distinct inventories were initially created using OBIA and field survey methods, respectively. A cooperative mapping method was utilized, focusing on visually analyzing high-resolution satellite images from Google Earth before and after the event. This approach aimed to harmonize and improve the inventories effectively. The resulting landslide inventory database comprises 1532 mapped landslides, with a particular emphasis on those initially missed in the individual inventories. The integration of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) played a pivotal role in our methodology. We employed the OBIA algorithm on Resourcesat-2 LISS-IV imagery (5.8 m resolution) and Sentinel-2 Earth observation data to generate a temporal inventory map covering the entire Western Ghats region. This mapping approach facilitated the identification of 1532 landslide polygons, providing a detailed spatial representation of landslide occurrences in the study area. The use of OBIA with high-resolution satellite imagery further enhanced the temporal mapping of landslides, demonstrating the applicability of this approach for landslide detection in complex terrains such as the Western Ghats.