Use of GIS and remote sensing for mapping susceptibility to slope instability movements in the mountainous west of Côte d'Ivoire

Slope instability phenomena, by their essentially random nature, generate risks for various elements of mountain heritage. In Man Mountains region of Man, located in the west of Côte d'Ivoire, the manifestation of these phenomena is made more and more because of the rugged terrain and climate change. This study aims to map potential areas of slope instability movements in the Man area to prevent natural damage and/or casualties. The method used in this work, is based on remote sensing, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Saaty's analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Six (6) factors involved in the occurrence of landslides such as slope, drainage density, fracturing density, regolith thickness, precipitation, and normalized vegetation index (NDVI) have been mapped. Their integration into a GIS has made it possible to map the region's susceptibility to slope instability movements. Indeed, using Saaty's analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, a prioritization, a weighting and a classification of the different factors were made. This facilitated the linear combination of the different factors in the GIS. The resulting susceptibility map was field-verified to yield a susceptibility map to slope instability movements of Man area. This map shows classes of very low, low, moderate, high and very high susceptibility. Areas of high and very high instability represent 14.65%. They are located in the West Central of the study area. Majority of these areas are found on the slopes of the Tours and Dan, mountains located between Biankouma and Man, which are characterized by steep slopes and registrate rainfall of more than 1500 mm. © 2018 Soc. Francaise de Photogrammetrie et de Teledetection. All rights reserved.