Landslide modelling using remote sensing and GIS

One of the forms of natural disasters given much attention by researchers all over the world during the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990-2000) is the occurrence of landslides. Landslides take place in various regions of India, notably in the Himalayas and the Western Ghats, especially during monsoon. This paper describes some of the on-going studies related to modelling and risk evaluation of landslides at IIT Bombay, India. The studies described are: (i) rainfall induced landslide evaluation using DEM and GIS, (ii) fractal modelling of mass movement including critical failure surface determination using shortest path concept of GIS and (iii) evaluation of risk due to landslide. The unconventional methods used here demonstrate the usefulness of a GIS based technique in identifying potential slide regions in a long stretch of a hill slope and the corresponding risk, which could serve as supports for landslide hazard management.