Assessment of
social vulnerability of landslides in the Darjeeling district using MCDA-based GIS
techniques
Rana Sohel, Dharanirajan K., Jaman Toushif and Mandal Kajal Kumar
Disaster Advances; Vol. 15(9); 8-15;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/1509da08015; (2022)
Abstract
The consequences or the result of any disaster or hazard's impact on society or
nature is considered a vulnerability. In terms of landslide hazards, it causes many
losses to the community such as the death of people, damage to property and damage
to nature. Social vulnerability is measured with different scales depending on the
area of the occurrence. In this study, a social vulnerability was conducted to identify
the socially vulnerable zones such as people and property. The study was conducted
in the Darjeeling district, West Bengal (26027” N to 27013” N latitudes and 87059”
E to 88053” E longitudes). The main objective of this study is to find out the area
under vulnerable zones. With the help of the GIS platform and Data available from
the DDMA handbook and Census 2011, the social vulnerable map was created. In this
study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)17 was applied to determine the weighted
values of each factor i.e. Population Distribution, Literacy Rate, Non-working population
etc.
All the parameters were put into Arc GIS based on each parameter’s weighted values
and the final output of social vulnerability was prepared. The result showed that
26% area comes under high vulnerable zones and 4% are in very high vulnerable zones.
The southern part of the district comes under high to very high vulnerable zones
due to the high population density and high settlement density.