State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, People's Republic of China.
State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, People's Republic of China.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 May 20;770:145357. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145357. Epub 2021 Jan 23.
The Western Ghats (WG) mountain range in the Indian sub-continent is a biodiversity hotspot, now faces a severe threat to the valley population and ecosystem because of changing rainfall patterns and land-use changes. Here, we use the 2018-2019 landslide inventory data together with various geo-environmental factors and show that the landslide activity in the WG region is amplified by anthropogenic disturbances. We applied a generalized feature selection algorithm and a random forest susceptibility model to demonstrate the major topographic controls of landslides and the risk associated with them in the WG region. Our results show that road cutting and slopes modified to plantations are the strongest environmental variable (50% - 73% within 300 m buffer distance) related to the landslide patterns, whereas short-duration intense precipitation in the high elevated terrain, profile concavity, and stream power contributed to the initiation of landslides. The susceptibility models made for the present, and Global Climate Models (GCM) under the representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario predicts the vulnerable nature of WG for future climate extremes. Our results highlight the impacts of Anthropocene hazards and sensitivity of the WG ecosystem, and a greater focus therefore should be placed to reduce the vulnerability and increase preparedness for future events.
印度次大陆的西高止山脉是一个生物多样性热点地区，但由于降雨模式的变化和土地利用的变化，现在山谷居民和生态系统面临着严重威胁。在这里，我们使用 2018-2019 年的滑坡清单数据以及各种地理环境因素，表明人类活动干扰放大了西高止山脉地区的滑坡活动。我们应用了广义特征选择算法和随机森林易感性模型，以展示西高止山脉地区滑坡的主要地形控制因素以及与之相关的风险。我们的结果表明，道路切割和改造成种植园的斜坡是与滑坡模式最相关的最强环境变量（在 300 米缓冲区范围内占 50%-73%），而高海拔地区的短时间强降水、剖面凹度和水流功率则有助于滑坡的发生。目前和代表浓度途径（RCP）8.5 情景下的全球气候模型（GCM）制作的易感性模型预测了西高止山脉未来对极端气候的脆弱性。我们的研究结果强调了人类世灾害的影响和西高止山脉生态系统的敏感性，因此应更加重视降低脆弱性并为未来事件做好准备。
