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Regional assessment of landslide impact in the Three Gorges area, China, using ASTER data: Wushan-Zigui

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Abstract

This paper is focussed on the hazard impact of landslides in the Three Gorges, and represents the progression of our ongoing study on regional land instability assessment in the Three Gorges area using imagery data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Radiometer (ASTER). The key development here is the establishment of a model that integrates land instability with several factors that can relate hazard to human life, such as slope failures occurring in proximity to built-up areas and roads, and areas of high landslide risk along the bank of Yangtze and its major tributaries. The method correctly identifies some of the known destructive landslides in the region, like Qianjiangping and Huangtupo, as belonging to areas of potentially high landslide impact. Our results suggest that several population centres, including the towns of Wushan and Badong, are rated at high landslide hazard levels. This study highlights the importance of differentiating between landslide types within susceptibility assessment, and identifies those locations in the Three Gorges where the probability of landslide occurrence with negative impact to life and property is greatest.

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Acknowledgements

Fieldwork was partly funded by an Imperial College Trust grant. We are thankful to one anonymous reviewer, Dr. G.H. Wang, and Dr. F.W. Wang for their comments, which helped improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    I. G. Fourniadis, J. G. Liu & P. J. Mason

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  1. I. G. Fourniadis
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  2. J. G. Liu
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  3. P. J. Mason
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Correspondence to I. G. Fourniadis.

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Fourniadis, I.G., Liu, J.G. & Mason, P.J. Regional assessment of landslide impact in the Three Gorges area, China, using ASTER data: Wushan-Zigui. Landslides 4, 267–278 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-007-0080-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-007-0080-5

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