Vulnerability assessment of the road transport system in landslide prone areas

Abstract

As one of the devastating natural disasters, landslide may induce significant losses of properties and lives in the areas where they occur, causing damages to transportation network infrastructure. Assessing the impacts of landslide-induced disruptions to roadway infrastructure can be extremely difficult due to the complexity of involved impact factors and uncertainties of vulnerability related events. In this study, a data-driven approach was developed to assess landslide induced transportation roadway network vulnerability and accessibility. The vulnerability analysis is conducted by integrating a series of factors that reflect the landslide likelihood and the consequences of network accessibility disruptions. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) model was developed to assess and map the landslide likelihood. A vulnerability index (VI) was calculated for each roadway link for each of the selected origin destination pairs in the network as a combination of the likelihood of landslide occurrence and the total consequence, to identify critical links. Specifically, the study area was classified into five categories of landslide likelihood: very high, high, moderate, low, and very low susceptibility. About 54% of the study area was assigned as the high or very high categories. The results of network vulnerability analyses highlighted the importance of various roads in Bududa District, based on how people move within the district. The proposed network vulnerability analysis method provides a new perspective to examine the vulnerability and accessibility of the roadway network impacted by landslides.