Landslide Susceptibility Mapping of Kundiawa Gembogl District in Simbu Province of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

A landslide is the downslope and outward movement of earth-forming materials. The study area is Kundiawa Gembogl district, which is one of the six districts of Simbu Province in the highlands region of Papua New Guinea. More often, there are landslides on the roads that affect the traffic for both locals and the tourists who visit Mt. Wilhelm every year and affect the local revenue. This research aims to identify the landslide-prone areas and produce a landslide susceptibility map of the district of Kundiawa Gembogl, and a risk assessment of the properties. A wide variety of parameters or physical factors can affect the earth’s stability and cause landslides. In this research, six (6) physical factors were used to generate a landslide susceptibility map. They are rainfall, slope, lithology, soil types, distance from the road, and distance from the river, which were generated either from the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or through spatial analysis using Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) national database respectively. The Weighted Linear Combination (WLC), an analytical method that deals with multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) was used to generate the landslide susceptibility map. The resulting susceptibility map was validated by using fifteen (15) past-recorded landslides in the area and most of them were found to be in the moderate and high-risk zones.