Landslides are among the main natural catastrophes, which cause major problems in mountainous terrain by
killing hundreds of people every year besides damaging property, disrupting transportation and blocking
communication links.
-They are a type of mass wasting, which denotes any downward movement of soil and rock under the direct influence of gravity. They generally occur in clay-rich soil.
LANDSLIDE ATLAS OF INDIA:
1.National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) under the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has released the Landslide Atlas of India, a detailed guide identifying Landslide Hotspots in the country.
2.NRSC has the mandate for remote sensing satellite data acquisition, processing, archiving, and dissemination to various users.
3.In addition to aerial images, high-resolution satellite images captured using ResourceSat-1 and 2, etc., were used to study the landslides.
4.ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre created a database of landslide-prone regions of India based on events during 1998 – 2022.
Findings of India’s Vulnerability regarding Landslides:
India is considered among the top five landslide-prone countries globally, where at least one death per 100 sq km is reported in a year due to a landslide event.
1.Landslides are one of the common geological hazards in hilly areas throughout the world. Other than geological and anthropogenic causes, rainfall is the natural triggering factor for occurrence of landslides.
2.Rainfall-induced landslides are the result of the combined action of water on topography, geology, soil and vegetation. Landslides have led to massive environmental damages such as increase in sediment discharge due to soil erosion and loss of human lives every year.
4.Approximately 0.42 million sq. km or 12.6% of land area, excluding snow covered area, is prone to landslide hazard. Out of this, 0.18 million sq. km falls in North East Himalaya, including Darjeeling
and Sikkim Himalaya; 0.14 million sq. km falls in North West Himalaya (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu& Kashmir)
5. (0.09 million sq. km) in Western Ghats & Konkan hills(TamilNadu,Kerala,Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra) and 0.01 million sq. km in Eastern Ghats of Aruku area in Andhra Pradesh.
6.In India,landslides mostly occur in the monsoon season.
7.Himalayas and Western Ghats are highly susceptible to mass movements due to hilly topography and heavy rainfall.
State-wise Distribution:
- Uttarakhand, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh reported the highest number of landslides during 1998 – 2022.
- Mizoram topped the list, recording 12,385 landslide events in the past 25 years, of which 8,926 were recorded in 2017 alone.
- 2,071 events of the total 2,132 landslides reported in Nagaland during this period occurred during the 2017 monsoon season.
- Manipur, too, showed a similar trend, wherein 4,559 out of 5,494 landslide events were experienced during the rainy season of 2017.
App For Knowledge about Landslides:
-The FLIM mobile app is developed by NRSC/ISRO. It aimed to be used by SDMAs/DDMAs/Govt. organizations/
resarchers with reasonable knowledge on landslides.
-The main purposes of this app are to collect data of landslides from the field and to develop a landslide warning
system for the region using the
collected field landslide data.
The collected data sent from the field using this app will be uploaded in the BHUVAN and NDEM servers for analysis and visualization.
Hence, the app will help the state agencies as incident reporting
system for landslide disasters and for development of a landslide early warning system in the region.