GIS based Grid overlay method versus modeling approach – A comparative study for landslide hazard zonation (LHZ) in Meta Robi District of West Showa Zone in Ethiopia

The present study area is located in Meta Robi District of West Showa Zone in Oromiya Regional State in Ethiopia. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate landslide hazard zonation (LHZ) by utilizing ‘Grid overlay’ and ‘GIS modeling’ approaches. Also, it was attempted to know the effectiveness of the two methods. The methodology followed was based on the analysis of past landslides in the area. For the present study six causative factors namely; slope material, slope, aspect, elevation, land use and land cover and groundwater surface traces were considered. Later, Landslide Susceptibility Index (LSI) was computed based on the relative influence of causative factors on past landslides. For the ‘Grid overlay’ method a grid with cells 10 m by 10 m was overlaid over the study area and later it was geo-processed to delineate various sub-classes of each causative factor. LSI values were assigned to each sub-causative factor within each grid cell and a ‘Total Landslide Susceptibility Index’ was calculated to produce the LHZ map. For ‘GIS modeling’ the same causative factors and similar LSI values were utilized. In the case of LHZ map prepared by the ‘Grid overlay’ method about 82% of past landslides fall within ‘very high hazard’ or ‘high hazard’ zones whereas in the case of ‘GIS modeling’ about 95% of past landslides fall within ‘very high hazard’ or ‘high hazard’ zones. Finally, the validation showed that ‘GIS modeling’ produced better LHZ map. Also, ‘Grid overlay’ method is more tedious and time consuming as compared to GIS modeling.