Landslide Volume Estimation Based on Landslide Area in a Regional Scale (Case Study: Mazandaran Province)

Abstract

Knowing  the  number,  area,  and  volume  of  landslides  is  important  in  order  to  determine  landslide
susceptibility and hazard to evaluate the long term evolution of landscapes dominated by mass wasting
processes. Determining the volume of a landslide is a more difficult task that requires information on
the  surface  and  sub-surface  geometry  of  the  slope  failure  that,  at  present,  can  be  achieved  only  by
adopting   empirical   relationships   to   link   the   volume   of   individual   landslides   to   geometrical
measurements of the failures, chiefly landslide area. In this research, at first, the data of 442 landslides
in  Mazandaran  province  including  area, volume  and  depth  was  provided.  Then  a  new  empirical
relationship  was  calculated  for  prediction  of  landslide  volume  and  this  relationship  was  evaluated.
Subsequently similar relationships in literature review were applied for the landslide observation data
of Mazandaran province and were compared together. Results show that calculated volume values by
new  empirical  relationship  is  in  agreement  with  observed  data  (R 2 =0.823   P value =  0.000)   and  some relationships which revealed applicability of presented relationship. Also for Mazandaran landslides,
the relationships which were presented for large landslides in their study areas were more applicable
than those presented for small landslides in their study areas. Regarding new relationship, the mean of
landslide depth was determined 7.81 m that was close to mean of observed depth (7.38 m).