Spatial distribution law of landslides and landslide susceptibility assessment in the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis Region

Abstract

The eastern Himalayan syntaxis region is located on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and it's one of the regions with the most intense geological tectonic activity in the world. There have been many large-scale landslides in the eastern Himalayan syntaxis region and the distribution of these landslides is of great significance for the inversion of regional tectonic activity strength, major engineering construction, and urban-rural planning. However, no researchers have systematically studied all these landslides of this area. First, based on Google Earth satellite imagery, landslides were identified using artificial visual interpretation. Second, 11 landslide-influencing factors were selected, comprising topographic factors (elevation, slope, aspect, curvature), geological environmental factors (strata, distance to faults, distance to waters, distance to roads, normalized difference vegetation index), inducing factors (peak ground acceleration, rainfall), the relationships between the distribution law of landslides and influencing factors were analyzed. Finally, the logistic regression model (LR), the weight of evidence model (WoE), and the weight of evidence- logistic regression (WoE–LR) coupled model were used to evaluate the landslide susceptibility.