Laser Scanning Applications in Landslide Assessment

Remote sensing techniques have undergone rapid and significant improvements in the last few decades. The capability of new and enhanced remote sensing techniques to acquire 3D spatial data and very high-resolution terrain contours allows advanced and effective investigations of landslide phenomena. Data from multi-sensors supplemented with airborne- and ground-based data collection techniques

In recent years, airborne-derived products from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurements, such as high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs), slope, curvature, shaded relief, and maps of landslides obtained from beneath dense vegetation, are becoming increasingly important for producing a detailed landslide inventory map

The rapid expansion of cities and the continuously increasing population in urban areas lead to the establishment of settlements in mountainous areas.

Landslide inventories are indispensable in producing landslide susceptibility, hazard, and risk maps. Landslide inventory maps are produced by detecting landslide locations or scarps.

Debris flow and related landslide processes can cause significant hazard to human kind and economic loss annually. Debris flow is a type of mass movement or landslide (Kuriakose 2006; U.S Geological Survey 2004). Varnes (1978) defined debris flow as a sudden mass movement, in which a combination of loose soil, rock, organic matter and water moves as a flowing slurry. In an earlier paper, Hutchinson (1988) defined debris flow as a mixture of sand, silt, clay and coarse materials, such as gravel, cobbles and boulders, with variable amounts of water that travels down under the influence of gravity in high density. Youssef and Pradhan (2013) specified that moving downward the slope causes debris flows when poorly sorted sediments or loose overburden materials are saturated with water. Several terms related to mass movement include debris floods, lahars, debris torrents or debris slides (Varnes 1978; Johnson 1984; Pierson and Costa 1987; Pradhan and Lee 2009, 2010a; Youssef et al. 2013).

Landslides are considered devastating natural geohazards worldwide; they pose significant threats to human life and result in socioeconomic losses in many countries (Mahalingam et al. 2016).

Landslides are among the destructive natural disasters that cause significant damage to human life and properties worldwide. Numerous researchers have attempted to provide an understanding of landslide causes and related problems. An important and simple analysis method that has been used in landslide studies is landslide susceptibility mapping/modeling (LSM). LSM is fundamental to hazard and risk assessments, and it is widely used by governments for planning land use and strategic projects. LSM requires landslide conditioning factors and landslide inventories, which can be acquired using remote sensing and field surveying techniques. The output of LSM is a map that shows the degree of landslide susceptibility of an area.

Rapid urban growth and climate change in recent years have resulted in many environmental problems and increased risks due to natural disasters.

A landslide is one of the most dangerous natural hazards that can cause considerable damage to human life and properties (Yin et al. 2009; Pradhan and Lee 2010; Jebur et al. 2014).

In Malaysia, landslides are considered as the most frequent and devastating natural disaster that cause human life and property losses. The spatial prediction of landslides is the basic step required for hazard and risk assessments. Spatial prediction methods of landslides are established and documented in the literature. However, several research directions on this topic need to be developed and explored in depth. The current improvement in computer technology and laser scanning systems provide improved data processing capabilities and topographic datasets, as well as new trends in landslide modeling and methods that can deal with such advanced technologies and datasets.

Landslides are active natural hazards in many areas of the world. Landslides damage and destroy man-made structures and landforms, causing many deaths and injuries every year.

Natural hazards, such as landslides, earthquakes, and floods, result in considerable losses of lives and properties. Natural disasters are in fact the main cause of irrecoverable damages worldwide.

The rapid urban development and population growths worldwide push threats to the people because of landslides and other mass movements. Landslide is one of the natural disasters causing significant damages to lives and properties.

Debris flows and related landslide failure phenomena occur in many mountainous areas worldwide and pose significant hazards to settlements, human lives, and transportation corridors. Debris flows occur on different terrains where sufficient debris materials are available and the angle of slope is steep enough. Flow behavior is of different types, namely, confined, unconfined, and transition.

Rockfalls are landslides that exhibit mass movements and highly varied volume and that involve rock masses ranging from several cubic centimeters to thousands of cubic meters. Rockfalls happen when rock masses are detached from a cliff face and freely fall under the effect of gravity.

Rockfall is one of the catastrophes which threaten the human’s life and properties in mountainous and hilly regions such as Malaysia with steep and high-elevation topography. Prediction and mitigation of such phenomenon can be carried out via the identification of rockfall source areas (seeder points) and modelling of rockfall trajectories and their characteristics. Therefore, a proper rockfall analysis method is required in order to map and thus to understand the characteristics of rockfall catastrophe.