Development and Application of Models for Landslide Hazards in Northern Pakistan

In this paper, new models were investigated and developed for landslide hazards in Muzaffarabad District, located in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region of Pakistan. The influential factors used in the landslide modelling were land use/landcover (LULC), elevation, slope, slope aspect, rainfall, drainage, road, surface roughness, and topographic index. The GIS-based Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model was applied by utilizing the database of 35 active landslides and their pixels present in classes of all influential factors. The mean landslide hazard values, obtained from the mean landslide hazard analysis, were used as hazard weightages in the AHP model for development of a landslide hazard zone map. The highest mean hazard values for: (i) bare soil in LULC was 14.6%; (ii) 600–800 m in elevation was 6.89%; (iii) 30°–35° in slope was 6%; (iv) S and SW in slope aspect was 9.01%; (v) 1350–1405 mm/yr in rainfall was 9.03%; (vi) 40–80 m in buffered drainage was 12.83%; (vii) 40–80 m in buffered road was 12.48%; (viii) 60–138 in surface roughness index was 10.99%; (ix) −1.74–−1.25 in topographic position index was 13.07%. The percentages of very low, low, moderate, high, and very high landslide hazard zones were 1.48%, 11.80%, 39.36%, 37.36%, and 9.57% respectively. The co-efficient of the determination (r2) value of 0.96 indicated a strong relationship between the model development and validation. Thus, landslide hazard zone map models and methodology indicated a very high accuracy. This landslide hazard zone map could be utilized for the landslide damages’ reduction and the planning and development of road and building infrastructures in the study area. Additionally, this research could be replicated in other landslide prone areas of Pakistan for the minimizing the damages of landslides.