1

Assessment of Landslide Vulnerability with Special Reference of

R. C. Nazare, M. T. Shelar, S. S. Deshmukh 1
B.Tech Student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Walchand College of Engineering Sangli, India,416415, Email:
Chhinka Village in Uttarakhand
rushinazare@gmail.com, manoharshelar2261995@gmail.com, shambhavideshmukh7@gmail.com

P. K. Deshpande 2
Associate Professor, Geology, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Walchand College of Engineering Sangli,
Maharashtra, India, 416415, Email: purushottam.deshpande@walchandsangli.ac.in


Abstract. The aim of this paper is to discuss a number of
issues related to the use of spatial information for physical
vulnerability assessment. This study offers a semi-quantitative
assessment of the physical vulnerability of buildings to
landslides in Chhinka village of Chamoli District in
Uttarakhand State of India. The last few decades have shown a
very fast development in the application of digital tools such
as Geographic Information Systems, Digital Image
Processing, Digital Photogrammetry and Global Positioning
Systems. The physical vulnerability assessment was based
landslide hazard zonation mapping as it focuses on hazardous
zones only.The vulnerability values given by experts who
know the study area and have done a lot of research. The
obtained vulnerabilities vary from 0.2 to 1 as a function of the
structural building types. In relation to hazards and disasters,
Vulnerability is a concept that links the relationship that
people have with their environment to social forces and
institutions and the cultural values that sustain and contest
them. Landslide Hazard Zonation and obtained information
has specified some vulnerable zones for which ground trothing
was done several times. The local economy, overall cash flow,
current rates, building structures and risk zones are cross
checked and modified accordingly.
INTRODUCTION:-
VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS:
Vulnerability assessment can be done using landslide
hazard zonation mapping. The landslide hazard zonation
mapping facilitates us to focus on hazardous zones only, rather
than covering entire study area. After tracing out the landslide
susceptible area the major part of vulnerability is covered by
collecting information by repeated site visits and part
information gathered by spatial layers integration.
In this research the semi- qualitative approach has
been used. This approach is the combination of qualitative and
quantitative methods. As all information cannot be collected in
numerical values and gathered in descriptive type or
categorised in terms of ‘very high’, ‘high’, ‘moderate’, ‘low’
and ‘very low’ and type of damage etc is the qualitative type
information. On the other hand some information is gathered
only in numerical values and the losses can be quantified. The
quantitative approach facilitates us the way to calculate the
hazard or to calculate vulnerability.
The main difference among qualitative and semi-
quantitative approaches is the assignment of weights under
certain criteria which provide numbers as outcome instead of
qualitative classes. Semi-quantitative approaches consider a
number of factors that have an influence on the vulnerability.
A range of scores and settings for each factor may be used to
assess the extent to which that factor is favourable or
unfavourable to the occurrence of hazard and the losses or
consequence. The matrix of hazards and consequences is used
to obtain a ranked value. This is done by combining a set of
hazard categories with a set of consequence categories.
During repeated site visits the information has been collected
regarding population, types and details of buildings,
transportation system, details of lifelines as water supply,
electricity, communication network, medical and educational
facilities etc. the information of past events has also been
collected in terms of nature and cause of occurrence, number
of lives suffered, details of damaged buildings, roads, lifelines,
essential facilities, agricultural farmlands, other income
sources, environment by deforestation, degradation, erosion
and disturbed ecosystem.
VULNERABILITY ASSESMENT:
Based on the above information the vulnerability
assessment has done. First the vulnerability is assessed for
different types of vulnerability as social, physical, economical
and environmental with different parameters. After calculating

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all different vulnerabilities, according to importance the value Stone 0.8

of damage has been calculated. Masonary
with Cement
mortar with
PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY ASSESMENT: tile or sheet
Physical vulnerability is potential for physical impact roofing
on the built environment and population. It is defined as the Brick masonary with Cement mortar 0.7
degree of potential loss, to a given element-at-risk or set of with tile or sheet roofing
elements-at-risk, resulting from the occurrence of a natural Reinforced RCC framed structure 0.6
phenomenon of a given magnitude; it is expressed on a scale Concrete Resistant Design (ERD) 0.5
from 0 (no damage) to 1 (total damage). Physical vulnerability Steel Steel Structure 0.5
is not a spatial component, but is determined by the spatial Wood Wood Structure 0.8
overlay of exposed elements-at-risk and hazard footprints. The physical vulnerability is calculated by assessing
Material Type of Structure Weights indicators like building, transportation, lifeline, and essential

Masonry Rubble Stone 0.9 facilities.

Building vulnerability assessment:
Earth Brick 0.9
In order to analyze building vulnerability, following
Stone Masonary with soil mortar with 0.9
information has been collected:
tile or sheet roofing
1] Location of property,
2] Number of buildings,
3] Average building size and
4] Type of buildings.
In this research the building vulnerability has been analyzed
by using following indicators:
1] Building density,
2] Building type and
3] Building vulnerability classes.
For estimation of the building vulnerability the
buildings are subdivided into different vulnerability classes on
the basis of building structure types and construction material
used.
The vulnerability classes have been assigned to
buildings based on several attributes like number of floors,
materials, and age of building.The building density, building
types and building vulnerability classes were weighted using a
pair wise method and combined into a final qualitative
building vulnerability map.
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Table 1-Illustration of building types with its construction

material.
Sr. No. Type of Building Resistance Damage
structure
1 Stone Masonary Less Major Damage-
with cement mortar. Collapse of walls Types of Physical Description Weights
and roof may Vulnerability
occur Lifeline Electricity power supply 0.8
2 Load bearing Medium Partial Damage vulnerability Tele -communications 0.2
structures of brick – Mobile telephone network 0.2
walls. Collapse of Walls Essential facilities School 0.5
with damage to Table 3- Illustration of lifeline and essential facilities types
roof. with its weights.
3 RCC framed Medium Minor Damage-
structures. Cracks occur in Summary of Physical Vulnerability:
wall and or roof. As the physical vulnerability is the combination of
building, transportation, lifeline, and essential facilities it is
summarized as below.

Table 2- Illustration of building types with its resistance Types of Physical Description Weight
and damage. Vulnerability s
1] Building Stone Masonary with soil 0.9
Transportation Vulnerability Assessment:
vulnerability mortar with tile or sheet roofing
The transportation vulnerability assessment has been
Stone Masonary with Cement 0.8
carried out by weighing the importance of road types. Road
mortar with tile or sheet roofing
maps have been prepared for district roads, paved roads and
RCC framed structure 0.6
unpaved roads, expressing the area and length of these per
2] Transportation Bitumen paved road 0.8
Sq.Km. These have been combined into road vulnerability
Vulnerability Unpaved road 0.1
using the following weights:
3] Lifeline Water supply 0.8
Lifeline vulnerability and Essential facilities:
vulnerability Electricity power supply 0.8
Lifelines are those networks that provide basic
Telecommunications 0.2
services to the population, such as water supply, electricity
Mobile telephone network 0.2
supply, telecommunications networks, mobile telephone
4] Essential facilities Medical centers 0.6
network, and the sewage system.
School 0.5
Essential facilities are those facilities that provide
Physical Vulnerability 0.57
services to the residents and should be functional after a
disaster event. Essential facilities include medical centers and
Table 4- Summary of Physical Vulnerability.
schools have been considered in this research.
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The vulnerability of landslide is dependent on its

severity, number of people suffered, type of structure affected
and resisting power of structures. By combining these factors
the damage has been classified for affected houses and people
with respect to severity of event.
SOCIAL VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT:
Social vulnerability is the potential impact of events Severity level Description Weights
on vulnerable groups within a society (residents, children, 1 Life threatening experience 0.2
elders, handicapped persons, single parent households, which if not treated adequately
pregnant women etc.). How much population is affected has the structural failure may occur.
been calculated in social vulnerability assessment. In this 2 Homeless 0.5
study the social vulnerability has been assessed using semi-
3 Minor Injury requiring basic 0.6
qualitative method. In this method the information gathered is
medical aid without
partially qualitative like details of buildings, information of
hospitalization.
event, name of village, roads and essential facilities available
4 Major Injury requiring 0.7
in the area and partially quantitative information like numbers
hospitalization for greater
of lives and properties in the affected area of settlement and
degree of medical care.
roads etc.
5 Death 1
Estimation of Population suffered:
The vulnerability of population has been subdivided Table 6- Illustration of affected population with types of
in the direct physical vulnerability of the population (injury, structure and its damage.
casualties, and homelessness) which has been evaluated here.

ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY:

Types of Vulnerability Description Weights Economic vulnerability is defined as the potential

1] Economic Vulnerability Agricultural sector 0.90 impact of hazards on economic assets and processes (i.e.
Tourism sector 0.30 agricultural damage, business interruption, secondary effects
Services 0.10 such as increased poverty, and job loss). As the main source of
Economic Vulnerability 0.43 income in this area is farming and tourism, the economic
vulnerability is dependent on these points. To analyze the
Table 5 - Illustration of severity levels with its description.
economic vulnerability we have taken into account the
following indicators:
Following building vulnerability study, the analysis
of damaged buildings effects on occupants is of further most
ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY:
importance. For the evaluation of live losses, it is crucial to
Environmental vulnerability instead evaluates the
define the injury in severity classes, severity of event, type of
potential impacts of events on the environment (forest, land
structures, resistance of structures and damage to the
cover, natural drainage, soil erosion, flora, fauna, ecosystems,
structures. The detailed classification of all above parameters
biodiversity, etc.).
for estimation of life injury is given below.
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To analyze the environmental vulnerability the following given more importance as it is the medium of income.
indicators are taken: Environmental vulnerability was given the lowest weight as it
is having indirect effects on human being.

Table 7 - Illustration of environmental indicators with

weights.

Types of Description Weights

LANDSLIDE RISK ASSESSMENT:
Vulnerabilit
The hazard assessment starts with the modelling of
y
groundwater depths, based on a slope hydrology model, where
1] Land cover 0.35
daily rainfall and the soil characteristics form the main sources
Environmen Natural drainage 0.45
of input. These parameters would form the input in a
tal Cultural heritage 0.20
vulnerability assessment.
Vulnerabilit
y
Environmental Vulnerability 0.33

OVERALL VULNERABILITY
Vulnerability can be aggregated and all types of vulnerability
combined for overall vulnerability assessment.

Sr. Types of Vulnerability Weights

No.
1 Social Vulnerability 0.66
2 Physical Vulnerability 0.57
3 Economic Vulnerability 0.43
4 Environmental Vulnerability 0.33

Table 8 showing Overall Vulnerability.

Fig 1- Illustration for effects of rainfall and terrain

Human aspect is always more valuable than physical
characteristics on risk of property
aspects. So that social vulnerability is given more weights.
In which:
Physical aspects plays important role for survival of human
P(SPV | TM ) = Spatial probability. This is the conditional
being, so that next importance is given to physical
probability of initiating a landslide with a specific volume and
vulnerability. Social and Physical vulnerability both were
type at a specific location, given a certain triggering event
considered more important than economic and environmental
(e.g. rainfall, earthquake) with a certain magnitude/intensity.
vulnerability. Other essential aspects are economy and
environment. Among these the economic vulnerability has

P(SVT| TM) = Temporal probability. Conditional
probability of triggering any landslide with any specific
volume and type, given a certain activating event (e.g. rainfall,
earthquake) with a certain intensity, within a certain time
period.
Fig 2- Illustration for calculation of risk for a landslide
situation, in which the specific risk is consisting of a
number of individual probabilities
P(RX |SVT) = Conditional probability of runout. The
chance that a run out zone with distance X to the building will
be covered, given the occurrence of the landslide with a
particular volume and type.
P(DB |SVT ) = Conditional probability of damage to the
building of a particular construction type, given the
occurrence of the landslide with a particular volume and type.
CB = Replacement costs of the particular building.
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P(IP | DB) = Conditional probability of injuries or death
for a person present in the house, given the degree of damage
to the building by a landslide of a given volume and type
P(PH | SVT) = Conditional probability of persons being
present in the building, given the time of the day that the
landslide might occur (or percentage of persons in the building
given time of the day)
NP = Number of persons in the building
The estimation of landslide risk as indicated above is
conceptual. In practice there are a number of aspects that make
landslide risk assessment a particularly difficult procedure.
Some of these difficulties involved in calculating landslide
risk is shown in fig below. In this figure, the two
schematically represented buildings (elements at risk) present
different vulnerabilities as they are geographical located in
diverse positions, and might be affected by different types of
landslides and in different ways (undercutting/ impact).
Vulnerability is also determined by construction types, (e.g.
building materials, foundation types) which determine the
strength of the building to sustain impact/erosion.
Besides, due to the use, structure and size, the value
or cost of these buildings will also be different. While
calculating consequences each building will get a different
value and for the same hazard (e.g. a 20 years return period
landslide) the risk will be also different.
Furthermore, in calculation of risk to persons the
temporal changes in vulnerability also play a major role, both
for persons present in buildings, or in risky locations outside
(e.g. roads). Although the determination of the (temporal)
vulnerability of the elements at risk might be problematic, the
elements at risk themselves can be mapped and classified
without many conceptual problems, although the process may
be quite time consuming. Out of the three hazard deciding
elements as demonstrated in equation 1, the danger part is by a
wide margin the most complex to set up for avalanches.
Several of the problems associated with determining the
temporal and spatial probability of occurrence, the volume of
the expected landslide, and the extent to where the landslide
might be moving (run-out zone) is shown in following figure.

Fig 3- Illustration of some of the most problematic aspects
of landslide risk assessment
Therefore, in this research quantitative risk
assessment for landslides has been done using Event-based
landslide maps. In a medium scale examination occasion
based landslide inventory maps can be made, showing
landslides that have been activated by a similar occasion for
which the temporal probability is known. They are used in a
statistical analysis which results in a landslide susceptibility
map that can be classified in classes (e.g. high, moderate and
low).
The other approach is called the quantitative one,
which tries to quantify the risk according to the risk definition.
The risk has been calculated from the equation given below.
Risk = Hazard * Vulnerability * Amount of elements-at-
risk………..1
By using above equation and spatial data in a GIS the
risk quantification for hazards has been done. The way in
which the amount of elements-at-risk are classified (e.g. as
number of buildings, number of people, economic value or the
area of qualitative classes of importance) also defines the way
in which the risk is presented.
The hazard component in the equation actually refers
to the probability of occurrence of a hazardous phenomenon
with a given intensity within a specified period of time (e.g.
annual probability).
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To calculate risk quantitatively using above equation
the vulnerability is limited to physical vulnerability of the
elements-at-risk considered, determined by the intensity of the
hazard event and the characteristics of the elements-at-risk
(e.g. building type).
In order to calculate the specific risk the above
equation has been modified in the following way:
RS = PT x P L x V x A ………….2
PT = temporal probability, related to the return period of the
triggering event responsible for the event-based landslide
inventory;
PL = locational or spatial probability that a certain area will
be impacted by a landslide. This is calculated as the landslide
density (of the particular event based landslide inventory)
within the susceptibility class.
V is the physical vulnerability, for landslides which has been
calculated.
A is the quantification of the specific type of element at risk
calculated.
In order to evaluate these components we need to
have spatial information as all components of equation [2]
vary spatially, as well as temporally. The temporal probability
of occurrence of the hazard risk (PT) has also a spatial
component.
For hazards as landslides, the location of future
events cannot be identified exactly, because the areal unit used
in assessing hazard is not always identical to the area
specifically impacted by the hazard. For instance, the
probability of occurrence of landslides within the high
susceptibility zone can be calculated as the ratio of the
landslide area to the high susceptible area, multiplied by the
ratio of the area of the element of study to the high susceptible
area. The intensity of the hazard changes according to change
in place (e.g. landslide volume), and the exposure of the
elements-at-risk varies. In many risk approaches the term
‘exposure of elements-at-risk’ is included in the risk equation.
But in this research the GIS approach has been used to
facilitate the overlay of the hazard footprint with the
immediate exposed elements-at-risks for the risk calculation.
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Risk Calculations: V= 0.57 =Physical vulnerability, for landslides which has been
PT = 1 year calculated.
Temporal probability, which is related to the return period of A= A is the quantification of the specific type of element at
the triggering event responsible for the event-based landslide risk evaluated.
inventory;
PL = 0.181
Spatial probability that a certain area will be impacted by a
RS = PT x P L x V x A

Ty Tempora Spatial Vulner Amount RS = Landslide Hazard Zonation and obtained information
pe l Probabili ability A PT x P L x has specified some vulnerable zones for which ground truthing
Probabili ty V VxA was done several times. The local economy, overall cash flow,
ty PL current rates, building structures and risk zones are cross
PT checked and modified accordingly. This collected information

1 1 year 0.181 0.57 848234/- 87513/- then further used for vulnerability assessment. The obtained
amount after calculations based on local rates indicates that
2 1 year 0.181 0.57 4607209/- 475326/-
Chhinka and Chameli may get hampered for Rs. 3532173/-

296
3 1 year 0.181 0.57
/- The value shows there is necessity of implementation of
preventive measures to avoid the damage intensity.

933 CONCLUSION :-
The analysis of the landslide risk for the buildings of the

4/- Chhinka Village enables the stakeholders to focus on the

buildings for which the landslide vulnerability and the
landslide risk are high. Landslide risk analysis performed in
Total 3532173/-
this work may be very useful for insurance companies, which
are interested in risk values for buildings, but it may not be so
Table 9- Vulnerability Calculations for Chhinka and useful for end users dealing with spatial planning and civil
Chameli protection. Indeed, for spatial planning stakeholders, it is
crucial to know where future landslides will occur in order to
Type 1 – Stone masonry with soil mortar select the safest zones for development purposes. Therefore, a
Type 2 – Stone masonry with Cement mortar landslide susceptibility assessment like a hazard zonation map
Type 3 – R.C.C. is a very useful tool for spatial planning, which can be
improved with additional data on landslide magnitude and
landslide. This is calculated as the landslide density (of the landslide frequency. The Government need to know the
particular event based landslide inventory) within the landslide risk for buildings that have a vital or strategic role
susceptibility class. (e.g. hospitals, schools), but also the location of the population
(PL) Landslide Density = Susceptible area / study area that need to be protected, including the most vulnerable
= 3533611/19521578 groups of people.
= 0.181
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REFERENCES:
 Dai, F.C., Lee C.F. and Ngai, Y.Y., 2002.
Landslide risk assessment and management: an
overview. Engineering Geology, vol. 64, pp. 65-
87.

 Vulnerability Assessment and Landslide Risk

Analysis. Application to the Loures Municipality,
Portugal, C. Guillard-Gonçalves, J. L. Zêzere, S.
Pereira, and R. A. C. Garcia , pp. 83-107.
 Sati, S. P., Sundriyal, Y.P., Rana Naresh and
Dangwal Surekha., 2011.Recent landslides in
Uttarakhand: nature's fury or human
folly:Current Science, Vol. 100, pp. 1617-1620.
 Ms.Komal, Dr. Asha Thapliyal, Landslide
Vulnerability Assessment of Pauri
Garhwal Region in Uttarakhand .