AHP-based evaluation of the karst collapse susceptibility in Tailai Basin, Shandong Province, China

Karst sinkholes began to appear in Tailai Basin of China in the 1970s and have been increasingly exacerbating ever since. Evaluation of the sinkhole susceptibility has been challenging. The lithology (Li), distance to fault (DF), overburden type (OTy), overburden structure (OS), overburden thickness (OTh), groundwater depth (GD), relative location between the groundwater table and bedrock (RL), pumping wells (PW) are chosen as conditioning factors. The weights of the factors are obtained based the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Further, a GIS-based evaluation of the karst sinkholes susceptibility in the Tailai Basin is made. The Tailai Basin is divided into extremely susceptible area, highly susceptible area, moderately susceptible area and weakly susceptible area, and their corresponding areas are 60.15, 85.80, 61.69 and 19.88 km2, respectively. The extremely and highly susceptible areas are mainly distributed in Taian City and encompass an area of 145.95 km2. Results of this study provide a decision basis for prevention and treatment of karst sinkholes in the Tailai Basin.