Landslide susceptibility zoning north of Yenice (NW Turkey) by multivariate statistical techniques

Dramatic effects resulting from landslides on human life and economy of many nations are observed sometimes throughout the world. Landslide inventory and susceptibility mapping studies are accepted as the first stage of landslide hazard mitigation efforts. Generally, these landslide inventory studies include identification and location of landslides. The main benefit is to provide a basis for statistical susceptibility zoning studies. In the present study, a landslide susceptibility zoning near Yenice (NW Turkey) is carried out using the factor analysis approach. The study area is approximately 64 km(2) and 57 landslides were identified in this area. The area is covered completely by Ulus Formation that has a flysh-like character. Slope angle, elevation, slope aspect, land-use, weathering depth and water conditions were considered as the main conditioning factors while the heavy precipitation is the main trigger for landsliding. According to the results of factor analysis, the importance weights for slope angle, land-use, elevation, dip direction, water conditions and weathering depth were determined as 45.2%, 22.4%, 12.5%, 8.8%, 8.1% and 3.0% respectively. Also, using these weights and the membership values of each conditioning factor, the membership value for landslide susceptibility was introduced. In the study area, the lowest membership value for landslide susceptibility was calculated as 0.20. Consequently, combining all results, a landslide susceptibility map was obtained. Compared with the obtained map, a great majority of the landslides (86%) identified in the field were found to be located in susceptible and highly susceptible zones.