Geospatial approach for Landslide Susceptibility Mapping techniques: A Case Study of Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra, India

Natural and anthropogenic pressure leads to landslides which are catastrophic disaster. Due to climate and land use changes, increase in population landslides has been increasing, specifically, in the mountainous areas. It is threat to lives and their properties. It is necessary to understand geophysical setup of any region causing landslides. It is better to have scientific approach to identify landslide potential risk zones. There are several advanced techniques to study landslides. Here analytical hierarchical process and frequency ratio method incorporated with geospatial technology are utilized for identification of conditioning factors for landslides and landslide susceptibility mapping. Most of the landslide susceptible area are located in the eastern and some middle part of study region (Ratnagiri District). The landslide possibilities are very high along the riverside, high slope region and lineament surrounding. Very high susceptible zone is found to be located mainly in middle part of Chiplun, Devrukh, Rajapur and Dapoli, the southern part of Mandangarh, Khed and eastern part of Ratnagiri. The eastern part of Khed, Chiplun, Devrukh and Lanja falls under the high susceptible zone. Middle part of Guhagar, northern part of Ratnagiri and Rajapur fall under moderate susceptible zone. The southern part of Ratnagiri and western side of Rajapur fall under low susceptible zone. Proper planning and development in terms of disaster mitigation management are needed. No further construction near landslide hazards should be allowed. New laws/regulations should also restrict further construction around the zone of slope failures.