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Mahesh

08/01/24 06:55 AM IST

IIT Delhi team makes first hi-res landslide risk map for India

In News
  • ‘Indian Landslide Susceptibility Map’, is the first of its kind by virtue of being on a national scale, was rolled out by IIT Delhi recently. 
Landslides
  • Landslides are a unique and deadly problem in India. Unlike floods, they’re less widespread and harder to track and study with satellites.
  • Landslides happen in very localised areas and affect only about 1-2% of the country.
  • As a result, there is much less data of sufficient quality for typical machine-learning models to work with.
  • This map, which is  called the ‘Indian Landslide Susceptibility Map’, is the first of its kind by virtue of being on a national scale, leaving out no locations in the country.
  • For the first time, the authors have mapped the entire country for landslide probabilities, that too at high resolution.
  • The map will help the policymakers to assess vulnerability and take appropriate measures for mitigation.
Early warning system
  • The map acknowledged some well-known regions of high landslide susceptibility, like parts of the foothills of the Himalaya, the Assam-Meghalaya region, and the Western Ghats.
  • It also revealed some previously unknown places with high risk, such as some areas of the Eastern Ghats, just north of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
  • The map is also expected to be useful for organisations involved in investigating and mitigating landslides, like the GSI, the Ministry of Mines, and the National Disaster Management Authority.
  • The map is publicly available and accessible; one doesn’t need technical knowledge to interact with the data.
Source- The Hindu

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