Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

LANDSLIDES HAZARD ZONATION USING ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS IN TALEGHAN WATERSHED, IRAN

Amir Eshaghi, Hasan Ahmadi, Baharak Motamedvaziri and Aliakbar Nazari Samani

Abstract

The aim of this study was to produce landslide hazard zonation map using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for recognition of a hazardous prone zone in the Taleghan watershed that is located in Iran. In the first stage, most important factors triggering landslides were recognized, and thematic maps of these factors, including slope angle, aspect, plan curvature, rainfall, land use, lithology, distance from faults, distance from rivers and distance from roads, were prepared by use of Geographical Information System (GIS), aerial photos, satellite images, topographic maps, geological maps and field study. Then landslides inventory map was prepared using aerial photos satellite images and field checks (with using GPS). For weighting triggering factors, AHP Method which is an effective method in multi criteria decision analysis was employed. Using AHP method each layer was broken into smaller factors, then these factors were weighted based on their importance, and finally the last prepared layers were assembled and the final map was generated. Among triggering factors, the lithology with weighting of 0.16 had the prominent effect on landslides occurrence. Results showed that 60.02 % of recorded landslides in this area fall into the high and very high hazard zone marked by AHP model.