Landslide susceptibility mapping using MT-InSAR and AHP enabled GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis

Landslide susceptibility maps (LSMs) are generally prepared by integrating multiple prominent thematic layers, including DEM derived products (elevation, slope, and aspect), and other parameters such as lithology, geomorphology, LULC, etc. These parameters can be assigned optimum weights using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, followed by a GIS-based weighted overlay analysis. In recent years, multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (MT-InSAR) techniques have been rigorously explored, for land deformation detection and monitoring, by extracting highly stable measurement pixels using tens of SAR acquisitions simultaneously. In this research work, a GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis to prepare LSMs is proposed, with MT-InSAR derived displacement estimates used as a critical input parameter. An LSM is generated by processing 20 ERS-1/2 and Envisat ASAR images, acquired over similar to 120 sq. km wide river basin, located in Uttarakhand, India. The generated LSM is found to be congruent with the susceptible maps made available by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) under the National Landslide Susceptibility Mapping (NLSM) program. Preliminary results indicate that the majority of the unstable zones along the Alaknanda River are correctly identified. The approach is further implemented to generate an updated susceptibility map using 60 scenes of freely available Sentinel-1A dataset, followed by validation through actual field survey. This resulted in the generation of an updated susceptibility map, which helped in the identification of 44.5% new landslide susceptible zones (LSZs). Furthermore, the status of previously identified zones is also quantified. The performance of the proposed approach suggests its usability in generating and updating near-real-time LSMs.