ABSTRACT
Landslides are the most destructive geological hazard in the hilly terrain. For systematic landslide mitigation and management, landslide evaluation and hazard zonation is required. One of the best methods to study slope failure is the synergized approach of geological data with geospatial technology. In the Himalayas, a major widespread natural catastrophe, which accounts for considerable loss of life and damage to communication routes, human settlements, agricultural and forest land, is landslides. Located between highly rough and steep terrain, the Bandipora-Srinagar national highway is one of the vulnerable and land sliding-prone areas. A number of factors related to this issue have been addressed in the present work. Carved between hard rock in some parts but through loose sediments in overall, the highway has huge chances of sliding. In the hard rock terrain, the high rate of uneven road cuts and blasting without any engineering perspective and road cuts generated at high slope angles have made the hard rocks more susceptible to such slope failure. Thus, geospatial analysis in addition to the geological studies has been carried out to highlight these issues which have made the area vulnerable to slope failure. The dip, strike of the joints/faults, fold attitudes in addition to the geology, and dip strike of the bedding planes have been considered. Geospatial analysis like slope angle, aspect, land use/land cover, and contour mappings were carried out to delineate landslide-prone areas. Most of the landslide modelling using GIS involves contour interval of 20 meters or 10 meters and thematic maps generated from remote sensing data of resolution 30. Here, the ASTER DEM 30m and thematic maps like G-T Sheets in addition to the Google earth pro was used. At the end, the field surveys were carried out to verify the landslide-prone areas demarcated on the basis of geospatial technology and geological surveys. Finally, landslide zonation map was prepared on the basis of the data evaluated in the present study.
