Landslide Susceptibility Analysis in Arandu Area Shigar Valley, CKNP (Gilgit-Baltistan- Pakistan)

Abstract

The Pakistani Gilgit-Baltistan are recognised as being one of the most beautiful and interesting places in the world due to the presence of the longest glaciers and the highest reliefs. This area remained remote and inaccessible before 1965, after which began the construction of the first roads (Karakoram Highway – KKH). In 1992, the Pakistani Government delegated the responsibility for initiating a preliminary survey to outline the borders of the Central Karakoram National Park (CKNP). These surveys resulted in the preliminary outline of the CKNP area (about 3.000 km2), in which the major mountain massifs (as Mt. K2), watersheds, and glaciers were included. Since then, several proposals followed. With the aim of preserving this natural beauty for future generations as well as providing the CKNP of a Management Plan, a 5-year multidisciplinary project called SEED (Social, Economic, Environmental Development) started. One of the project’s objectives was the analysis of the landslide geohazards aiming at the implementation of a landslide inventory and the realization of a susceptibility map. The Arandu village, which is part of Shigar valley, where the Chogolungma glacier is, was chosen as test area. During the summer survey had in 2012, part of the landslide-prone areas, previously identified through DEM analysis (derived from ASTER and Remote Sensing (RS) images) and GIS techniques were identified validating the obtained maps. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to extract the factor weights in a pairwise comparison matrix. Frequency ratio (FR) method was adopted to drive each class weight. The Weighted linear combination was used in the end to determine the landslide susceptibility index value (LSI)

Groundwater vulnerability mapping using modified DRASTIC ANP

“…Developed by Thomas Saaty in 1980 [27], this methodology has been applied to several fields. It was initially devised for the economics, and was later on extended to the environment [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. The AHP tool was used to modify the weights of the parameters involved in the Modified DRASTIC method presented in the study.…”

District-level disaster risk and vulnerability in the Northern mountains of Pakistan

“…This study focuses on ten districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, the northern mountains of Pakistan within the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) and the junction of three mountain ranges (Hindu-Kush, Himalaya and Karakoram). Many studies focused on perception-based (Khan, Qureshi et al 2020;Khan, Rana, et al 2020) or comprehensive examination of individual geo-hazards in northern Pakistan (Rehman et al 2014;Ali et al 2015;Khan et al 2016;Calligaris et al 2017;Rahim et al 2018). But ten districts of this mountainous region occupying $72,000 km 2 area exhibit varieties of exposures to different risk scenarios.…”

Rockfall hazards of Mount Pellegrino area (Sicily, Southern Italy)

“…Several methodologies have been proposed to assess rockfall hazards (Calligaris et al, 2017;Crosta & Agliardi, 2003, 2004Fell et al, 2008;Frattini et al, 2008;Kanwal et al, 2017;Mineo et al, 2017) and the obtained results are useful tools for territory management since allow the identification of potentially dangerous areas and the drafting of guidelines for the risk mitigation measures. The hazard due to rockfall propagation consists of reach probability and rockfall intensity at specific locations (Frattini et al, 2008) and the related mapping requires definition of the runout distance and the area which can be reached by blocks (propagation area; Jaboyedoff & Labiouse, 2011).…”