Paper Title
Landslide and Human-Modified Landscapes- Kerala
Abstract
Landslides are natural disasters that occur on sloping terrains, resulting in human deaths and economic losses. Climate change and unplanned human interventions have resulted in an increased frequency of landslide occurrences in recent years. India being an emerging country, large-scale infrastructure expansion and fast urbanization have adverse impacts on the natural environment; the effects of these interventions aggravate natural disasters. Kerala State with extreme climatic change, is vulnerable to natural calamities due to its location along the sea coast and steep gradient across the Western Ghats. This study is incited from the series of landslide events in Kerala State during 2018 and 2019. The State had faced 2,137 landslide events during this period. The study had identified landslide hotspots in the State. The district-wise relationship between the number of landslide events and land use was examined. The result indicates that 59.38% of landslides in the State had occurred in plantation areas. This study thus, emphasis the requirement of a detailed assessment on landslide occurrences with respect to human modification of landscapes.
Keywords - Landslides, Hotspots, Human-modified landscapes, Kerela