Gis-Based Determination of Landslide Properties in Regional Scale: Karabuk Province (NW Turkey)

Abstract Natural hazards and their consequences are of great importance throughout the world. In Turkey, landslides constitute approximately 5% of the overall damage. The most important part of any landslide study is to extract landslide properties and database. In this study, Karabük city was selected as a study area which is known as one of the most landslide prone areas in Turkey. The study area contains the official borders of Karabük province. The area surrounded by the coordinates of 4518148N-4603891N and 424593E-512511E which has an areal extent of 4067 km square. The data of 1663 occurred landslides in Karabük, were digitized from 1/500.000 scale Turkey Landslide Inventory Map by considering the scarps with point vector format. Considering the literature, parameters of lithology, slope, topographical elevation, NDVI and aspect, which were frequently used among the researchers in landslide assessments, were produced and analyzed a GIS (Geographical Information System) platform. In order to perform analyses, the study area was divided into 62 watersheds. Then, lithology, slope, aspect, topographical elevation and NVDI characteristics of the region were automatically extracted by considering the landslide locations. In this type of study, GIS provides many advantages. For the next stages of landslide assessments such as susceptibility, hazard and risk, this stage provides important inputs and can be considered as the most important stage.