Debris flow susceptibility assessment by GIS and information value model in a large-scale region, Sichuan Province (China)

Debris flow susceptibility assessment is the premise of risk assessment. In this paper, Sichuan Province is chosen as a study area, where debris flow disasters happen frequently. Information value model is applied to calculate the information values of seven environmental factors, namely elevation, slope, aspect, flow accumulation, vegetation coverage, soil type and land-use type. Geographic information system technology is used to analyze the comprehensive information values so as to determine the debris flow susceptibility. The results show that the northeast, the central and the south of Sichuan are the most hazardous regions, which display a zonal distribution feature from the southeast to the south. From the validation results, 7.53 % of the total area suffers from high susceptibility and 19.97 % suffers from very high susceptibility. However, 80 % of the debris flows are concentrated in two regions. The actual occurrence ratios of debris flows of the high-susceptibility and very high-susceptibility areas are 4.95 and 2.14, respectively. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013