Use of GIS for

Landslide Susceptibility Mapping

Annamaria Saponaro
GFZ Centre for Early Warning
 Outline

• Introduction to the problem, the

research question and objective

• How can GIS be used for

landslide susceptibility mapping
in Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia)

• Overview of GIS functionalities

for spatial management of raster
and vector layers

• Landslide susceptibility results

and conclusions

(USGS, 2008)

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Central Asia: a global landslide hotspot

• The high seismicity of

the area

• The presence of high

topographic relieves

• The geology of local

materials

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Towards landslide risk evaluation

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• Slope gradient
• Slope aspect
• Profile curvature
Terrain analysis plugin
• Geology
• Distance from Faults slope
• Seismic intensity

aspect

SRTM Digital Elevation Model (2004)

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• Slope gradient
• Slope aspect
GRASS r.param.scale
• Profile curvature
• Geology
• Distance from Faults
• Seismic intensity

Profile curvature

IN: DEM

OUT: PROF.CURV

GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System)

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• Slope gradient
• Slope aspect
• Profile curvature
Digitization
• Geology
• Distance from Faults
• Seismic intensity

Geological map of Central Asia (2008)

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• Slope gradient
• Slope aspect
• Profile curvature
Creation of buffer zones
• Geology
• Distance from Faults
• Seismic intensity

1 km

5 km
Geological map of Central Asia (2008)

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• Slope gradient
• Slope aspect
• Profile curvature
Interpolation
• Geology
Intensity values with a 10% probability
• Distance from Faults of being exceeded in 50 years
• Seismic intensity

Inverse distance algorithm

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Conversion to raster

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 Landslide potential factors
slope aspect Profile curvature

distance from faults Geology Seismic intensity (MSK)

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Landslide occurrences
Training Test
landslides landslides
Landslide sample

1. Wide variability of
landslide factors

2. Study area
representative of
existing relationships
among landslide
factors in KG

(CAIAG)

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Landslide occurrences
Training Test
landslides landslides
Random selection

Training dataset & landslide factors -> landslide susceptibility modeling

Test dataset & landslide susceptibility -> landslide susceptibility validation

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 Weights-of-Evidence
How much influent
is a landslide factor
on landslide
occurrence?

P ( F | L) N F L / N L
W   ln  ln
P ( F | L)  L / N L
N F

P ( F | L) N F L / N L
W  ln  ln
P ( F | L) N F L / N L

(Bonham-Carter et al., 1989)

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 GRASS r.stats

Input layers slope_cl ls cells_num

1 1 36
Number of cells/ 2 1 356
total area
Grid coordinates 3 1 250

4 1 25
Null values

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Statistical analysis in R

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 Raster calculator

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 ROC curves

(Saponaro et al., submitted)

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Landslide susceptibility results:
Kyrgyzstan

(Saponaro et al., submitted)

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 Conclusions
• One of the preliminary steps in the direction of minimizing
landslide risk is represented by susceptibility analysis

• A procedure for landslide susceptibility mapping is

presented

• A range of GIS functionalities and plugins allow for landslide

factors analysis and processing, in particular terrain analysis,
interpolation, cross-tabulation of maps

• Combined with R, QGIS can be a powerful tool for identifying

areas where exists a potential for landslide activation

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 Thank you!

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