*Department of Surveying and Land Studies, The PNG University of Technology, Morobe, Lae, PNG
**Rajendra Memorial Research, Institutes of Medical Sciences (ICMR), Agamkuan, Patna, Bihar, India
Online published on 21 November, 2013.
Landslides are natural hazards that often cause serious damages of properties and even life losses. Because of the rugged terrain in the mountain region, deforestation, mining activity and short rapid rivers, the landslides usually happen after heavy rains and the resulting erosion and flash floods in Papua New Guinea. In this study landslide susceptibility zone are pinpointed based on spatial decision support system based on remote sensing and GIS technology. The study area is Markham Watershed in the eastern part of Papua New Guinea, extended from 145.97 to 147.08 East and 5.86 to 7.53 South. Eleven parameters are selected for this GIS based multi-criteria decession support system, namely absolute relief, slope, aspect, Lithology, landforms, soil erodibility, rainfall, distance from road, land use, forest cover and drainage density. The result shows that some small pocket of high susceptible landslide area in the south and southwest corner of the watershed. The low landslide susceptible zone has been delineated in the central part of the watershed because of the flat terrain.
Landslide, soil, drainage, slope, landforms and lithology, land use, vegetation cover, decision support system
