Regionalization Research of Mountain-Hazards Developing Environments for the Eurasian Continent

Abstract

Carrying out mountain-hazards developing environment research is helpful for understanding the spatial characteristics of the mountain hazards so as to contribute to mountain-hazards prevention and mitigation and the safety of infrastructures and major projects. In this study, the Eurasian continent was selected as the research area to conduct regionalization research on mountain-hazards developing environments. Using peak ground acceleration (PGA), the annual average precipitation and topographic relief as root factors of mountain-hazards developing environments (known as PPR factors) to represent the characteristics of geological structures, climatic impacts and geomorphology, the regionalization of mountain-hazards developing environments of the Eurasian continent was conducted through the combination of computer automatic classification and later artificial cartographic generalization. Finally, 15 subregions were obtained. A preliminary judgment of the mountain-hazards susceptibility for each region according to the characteristics of PPR factors was made, and nine subregions were identified as the overall high-susceptibility areas of mountain hazards. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of PPR factors and the mountain-hazards susceptibility characteristics in different mountain-hazards developing environment subregions, the high susceptibility regions of mountain hazards could be divided into three types: arid and active-geologic regions, humid and active-geologic regions, and humid and inactive-geologic regions. We hope that our research provides support for subsequent works of more specific and reasonable mountain-hazards susceptibility, hazard and risk models construction for different types of mountain-hazards developing environments.