Suitability Analysis of Landslide Susceptibility Model of Uttarkashi District in Uttarakhand, India: A Comparative Approach Between Weighted Overlay and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis

Natural disasters are can take place anytime and anywhere. When a natural disaster strikes, it lays a severe effect on the natural and social environment. Sometimes the intensity of damage goes to such an extent that it becomes almost difficult for man to cope with the situation and come out of the losses. Hence, it is very much necessary to adopt proper mitigation strategies so that the severity of the disaster can be reduced and colossal loss to life and property can be averted. The present study makes an attempt to perform a comparative study of landslide susceptibility of Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand prepared using weighted overlay technique and multi-criteria decision analysis technique by applying GIS and Remote Sensing tools and also tries to point out the suitable model out of the two. The study results revealed five landslide susceptibility zones and also found that the both the models were ‘Good’. However, AUC value of success rate curve of model prepared using weighted overlay (79.7%) is greater than that of multi-criteria decision analysis (78.9%) and thus is considered to more applicable for the future scenario. The study has also delved into the assessment of outrageous values of landslide events through the computation of stand error. The standard error values are widely scattered giving a result of non-homogenous distribution of the landslide points. The multi-spectral behavior also indicate the identical result as majority of the landslide events are detected near the higher elevated areas.