Assessing landslide vulnerability in Kohima city, Nagaland: A geospatial approach

Abstract

Kohima located in the Eastern Himalaya of Northeast India experience numerous landslides and soil
creeps annually. Landslides, the resultant of various interactions i.e., geological, geomorphologic,
meteorological factors etc., caused immense loss economically and environmentally. Kohima city
experiences torrential amount of rainfall which further aggravate landslide hazard. This paper implores
the use of high-resolution satellite data for deciphering landslide vulnerability mapping through remote
sensing and GIS technique. Factors such as land use and land cover, lithology, lineament, drainage, road,
aspect and slope were used as thematic input layers for landslide vulnerability mapping. Bivariate
statistical method particularly Information Value method was used to extract the information from the
landslide and the various controlling factors to generate the landslide vulnerability map. Validation of the
landslide vulnerability mapping using classification and R-index methods along with ground observation
were used to create the final vulnerability map.