Citation

Chuang YC, Shiu YS. Sci. Total Environ. 2018; 622-623: 1265-1276.

Affiliation

Department of the Urban Planning and Spatial Information, Feng Chia University, Taichung 407, Taiwan. Electronic address: ysshiu@fcu.edu.tw.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.12.039

PMID

29890594

Abstract

Development in mountainous areas is inevitable in countries with high population densities, but the actual relationship between development and landslides remains uncertain. Clarifying the key current or historical factors resulting in landslides is crucial for hazard prevention and mitigation. This study focused on the Shihmen Reservoir catchment in Taiwan. Two combinations of explanatory variables in five different years (1946, 1971, 2001, 2004, and 2012) collected from a geodatabase and digital archives were used to conduct proximity and discrete logistic regression analyses. The results demonstrate that landslides increased dramatically from 1946 to 2012 in the catchment area. The proximity and overlapping of human development with landslides increased. However, the logistic regression results indicated that variation in susceptibility to landslides was due to natural causes, with the exception of historical deforestation and newly constructed road systems. Therefore, well-recovered historical woodland sites might currently be landslide-prone areas. We suggest that cumulative historical events should be considered as explanatory variables in future landslide prediction analysis.

Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Discrete logistic regression analysis; Historical remote sensing data; Human development; Land use and land cover; Landslide; Proximity analysis