Landslide Hazard Zonation and Evaluation Around Debre Markos Town, NW Ethiopia—A GIS-Based Statistical Approach

Abstract The main goal of this research was to perform a landslide hazard zonation and evaluation around Debre Markos town, North West Ethiopia, found about 300 km from the capital city Addis Ababa. To achieve the aim, a GIS-based probabilistic statistical technique was used to rate the governing factors, followed by geoprocessing in the GIS setting to produce the landslide hazard zonation map. In this research, eight internal causative and external triggering factors were selected: slope material (lithology and soil mass), elevation, aspect, slope, land use land cover, curvature, distance to fault, and distance to drainage. Data were collected from field mapping, secondary maps, and digital elevation models. Systematic and detailed fieldwork had been done for image interpretation and inventory mapping. Accordingly, the past landslides map of the research area was prepared. All influencing factors were statistically analyzed to determine their relationship to previous landslides. The results revealed that 17.15% (40.60 km2), 25.53% (60.45 km2), 28.04% (66.39 km2), 18.93% (44.83 km2), and 10.36% (24.54 km2) of the research area falls under no hazard, low hazard, moderate hazard, high hazard, and very high hazard respectively. The validation of the landslide hazard zonation map reveals that 1%, 2%, 3%, and 94% of past landslides fall in no hazard zone, low hazard, moderate hazard zone, and high hazard or very high hazard zones respectively. The validation of the landslide hazard zonation map thus, it has been adequately demonstrated that the adopted approach has produced acceptable results. The defined hazard zones can practically be utilized for land management and infrastructure construction in the study area.