GIS Based Landslide Susceptibility Mapping Using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for Uttarakhand, India

More frequent landslide events, especially in hilly regions such as Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh etc., is resulting into irreparable socio-economic losses each year. In this research work, a landslide susceptibility map (LSM) is generated by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method in a GIS environment for Uttarakhand state of India. In previous such works, more or less similar thematic layers have been used for the LSM generation, which could be improved by increasing a few more landslide conditioning factors, yet important ones such as LULC, Geology, geomorphology, distance from roads, faults, rivers etc. Therefore, fourteen thematic layers (landslide conditioning factors), are utilized to detect the landslide susceptible areas. Weight for each factor is assigned depending on its impact on the landslide incidents. The LSM is derived using weighted overlay analysis based on AHP and categorized into three susceptible classes namely low, moderate and high. The results revealed that 15.42% of the study area is at low risk, 56.12% of moderate risk and 28.46% of high risk. The produced LSM is validated using LSM provided by BHUKOSH, a platform of data dissemination by Geological Survey of India (GSI). Such map would be helpful for planners and decision makers for land use planning and slope management in future.