| The Plateau region of Ethiopia lies within a seismically active continental extensional regime, which is being rapidly incised by the Blue Nile and the Tekeze Rivers. Extremely large landslides pose serious hazards in this highly populated region (>27 million), which is in the process of developing its hydrologic resources. This research sought to develop cost-effective methods to compile regional landslide inventory and landslide susceptibility maps, using geomorphic tools and GIS technologies. This work also sought to evaluate the relationships between landslide dams and knickpoints, caused by channel bed incision from those caused by slope failures, by utilizing identified knickpoints along 56 tributary channels across the study area. The study employed the weighted overlay technique to produce regional landslide susceptibility hazard maps, and for the first time, employing wind-driven and integrated rainfall/aspect rasters at various inclination to more realistically model the actual precipitation that is felt by hillsides of varying azimuth, shape, and height. Landslides greater than 500m long were tentatively identified on 1:200,000 topographic maps draped over 30m hill-shade generated ASTER GDEMv2. The mapping revealed different types of landslides, and also revealed a considerable number of old, dormant landslide features. The use of wind-driven rainfall with integrated rainfall and aspect rasters provided a much more detailed and asymmetric distribution of precipitation. Spatial distribution of the very high and high hazard areas, during the Kermit and Belg rainy seasons by a range of 0.38% for an inclination of 40o and 1.7% for inclinations on 60o, as compared to the traditional assumption of 90o vertical rainfall, without integration of a slope aspect raster. |
