Technical Studies

The evaluation for the potential of a natural hazard should take into account both the probability of the hazard to occur (i.e., the susceptibility) and the impact on casualty/injury and economic losses. The former determines the chance of hazard, while the latter provide a measure of the scale of hazard damage (or vulnerability). The threats from to a landslide dam can either be abrupt (e.g., flooding due to breaching of dam) or long-term (e.g., increase in sediment yield). For the purpose of hazard mitigation, the evaluation of abrupt type threats should include the assessment of failure probability of the landslide dam and the potential damage once the dam does breach. This project aims to establish methods for the assessments of landslide-dam failure probability as well as the scale of flooding damage and vulnerability after dam breaching. The landslide-dam hazard then can be assessed by the combination the level of landslide-dam failure probability and the level of flooding vulnerability. This project also design a geographic information system (GIS) for the management of landslide dam cases. It is anticipated that the GIS system will serve as a platform for necessary risk management and help to provide useful information for disaster prevention and hazard mitigation.