Spatial Coupling Among Landslides, Geological Structures, Cataclinal Slopes, and Fluvial Knick Zones in Nepal Himalayas

Abstract:

This work aims to identify potential landslide hazard zones in the event of heavy precipitation and seismic activity by examining spatial relationships among existing landslides, earthquake epicenters, fault zones, cataclinal (dip) slopes, anaclinal (escarp) slopes, and river steepness index in the Nepal Himalaya. In order to understand this relationship we have mapped existing landslides on Google Earth images and ESRI base maps, assembled high-resolution digital topographic data by digitizing Nepal Government published topographic maps, and gathered geological data from detailed field mapping and compilation of published geological maps. Slope angle and aspect, and dip direction and angle were extracted from GIS-based digital topographical and geological datasets to develop the new slope maps with cataclinal (dip) and anaclinal (escarp) slope distributions. Longitudinal river profiles were also extracted from high resolution DEM's derived from manually digitized contours. The slope maps with cataclinal and anaclinal slope distributions, earthquake epicenters, major geological structures, longitudinal river profiles, and landslide inventories were visualized in ESRI ArcMap 10.2 to examine the spatial correlation among landslides, fault zones, cataclinal slopes and river steepness index. We have found that landslides are spatially correlated with cataclinal slopes and fluvial knick zones with high steepness index in certain thrust boundaries. The main finding of this work is that the topographic slope threshold alone is a crude measure of landslide susceptibility. The analysis of slope using the geometric relationship among topography and geological bedding is crucial for determining landslide susceptibility in the Himalayan region.