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Satellite Imagery for Landslide Mapping in an Earthquake-Struck Area

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Abstract

This study examines the utilities of satellite imagery for landslide mapping in connection to a recent major earthquake event. The study area covers part of the Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, China, approximately 30 km away from the epicenter of the Sichuan Earthquake that struck on 12 May 2008. Estimated at the magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale, this earthquake is cited as the 19th deadliest earthquake of all time. The Sichuan Earthquake and its aftershocks have triggered numerous landslides that were directly responsible for at least one-third of the overall casualties and widespread infrastructure damage. The primary data used are two satellite images acquired before and after the Sichuan Earthquake by Terra’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM). Georeferencing and radiometric normalization are conducted before further processing the satellite scenes. A Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) image is computed from each of the images, and the NDVI change after the Earthquake is analyzed. It is found that the areas with a large NDVI decrease were largely related to earthquake-triggered landslide activities. This study demonstrates that satellite imagery can be quite useful to map the spatial distribution of earthquake-induced landslides quickly.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Florida State University for the time release in conducting this work. The research was partially supported by the Florida State University Council on Research and Creativity and the Chinese Academy of Sciences through the International Partnership Project Ecosystem Processes and Services. Thanks are also due to the Global Land Cover Facilities for sharing their data collection for the 2008 China Earthquake. Lastly, the author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewer and Dr. Emilio Chuvieco for their time and effort in reviewing the earlier version of the manuscript, which helped improve the scholarly quality of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 32306, USA

    Xiaojun Yang

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  1. Xiaojun Yang
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Correspondence to Xiaojun Yang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Geography, Universidad Alcala de Henares, Calle Colegios 2, Alcala de Henares, 22801, Spain

    Emilio Chuvieco

  2. , Department of Geography and Environmenta, University of Waterloo, University Avenue West 200, Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Jonathan Li

  3. , Dept. Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, 32306, USA

    Xiaojun Yang

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Yang, X. (2010). Satellite Imagery for Landslide Mapping in an Earthquake-Struck Area. In: Chuvieco, E., Li, J., Yang, X. (eds) Advances in Earth Observation of Global Change. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9085-0_13

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