Abstract
A landslide is a phenomenon that forms devastating impacts on human activities and the natural environment. The occurrence of landslides is a result of the interplay between driving and resisting forces. While gravity acts as the primary driving force, various climatic conditions and environmental settings such as topography, morphology, hydrology, lithology, and human activities are also contributing. Against these driving forces, the presence of thick vegetation cover improves the shear strength of mass by increasing cohesion and suction through evapotranspiration. On the other hand, due to anthropogenic activities such as agriculture and urban expansion, natural vegetation cover has been lost at both global and local scales. Keeping that in mind, this chapter evaluates the influences of the land cover dynamics on landslides, by considering Sri Lanka as a case. Recent statistics on disasters confirmed that landslides are the most frequent type of natural disaster reported in the mountainous region of Sri Lanka. Out of the 25, 10 districts: Badulla, Nuwara-Eliya, Kegalle, Kandy, Ratnapura, Matale, Kalutara, Matara, Galle, and Hambanthota are highly susceptible to landslides. The probing fact is that the landslide intensity of the country has increased tremendously after the year 2003. Does this emerge as a result of recent land cover changes that happened in Sri Lanka? This question will be answered systematically through this chapter.
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Kumarihamy, R.M.K., Nianthi, K.W.G.R., Shaw, R. (2022). Land Cover Changes and Landslide Risk in Sri Lanka. In: Sarkar, R., Shaw, R., Pradhan, B. (eds) Impact of Climate Change, Land Use and Land Cover, and Socio-economic Dynamics on Landslides. Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7314-6_18
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