Developing an accessible landslide susceptibility model using open-source resources

Abstract

Landslide susceptibility models are important for public safety, but often rely on inaccessible or unaffordable software and geospatial data. Thus, affordable and accessible landslide prediction systems would be especially useful in places that lack the infrastructure for acquiring and analyzing geospatial data. Current landslide susceptibility models and existing methodologies do not consider such issues; therefore, this study aimed to develop an accessible and affordable landslide susceptibility modeling application and methodology based on open-source software and geospatial data. This model used TRIGRS (asc format) and QGIS (Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) extracted from GeoTIFF format) with widely accessible environmental parameters to identify potential landslide risks. In order to verify the suitability of the proposed application and methodology, a case study was conducted on Lantau Island, Hong Kong to assess the validity of the results, a comparison with 1999 landslide locations. The application developed in this study showed a good agreement with the four previous landslide locations marked as highly susceptible, which proves the validity of the study. Therefore, the developing model and the cost-effective approach, in this study simulated the landslide performance well and suggested the new approach of the landslide prediction system.