Elsevier

CATENA

Volume 189, June 2020, 104504
CATENA

Debris flow susceptibility mapping using frequency ratio and seed cells, in a portion of a mountain international route, Dry Central Andes of Argentina

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2020.104504Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Lithology is an important related factor in the debris flow occurrence in the area.

  • Fifteen debris flows-related factors were applied to debris flow susceptibility.

  • All flow tracks and geometrical interval has higher prediction accuracy.

  • The methodology is easy to reproduce and applied to other mountainous regions.

Abstract

Debris flow and floods represent one of the main natural hazards that impact transport infrastructure, causing serious damage, economic losses and hinder regional economic development. These processes are eventually associated with massive traffic cuts and direct damage to road structures. To enable the prevention of such consequences, this paper employs statistical modeling techniques, various instability factors and geomorphological mapping to generate debris flow susceptibility maps in a portion of an important route on the Dry Andes of San Juan in the Agua Negra River basin, Argentina. A debris flows inventory map was prepared using satellite images and field checks. The debris flows inventory was randomly divided into a model dataset 80% (47 debris flows) and remaining 20% (12 debris flows) data was used for validation purpose. The instability factors chosen that influence debris flows occurrence were: elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, solar radiation, topographic wetness index, stream power index, topographic position index, Melton ruggedness number, terrain ruggedness index, sediment transport capacity index, plan curvature, profile curvature, lithology, distance to road and proximity to stream. Using these factors, six different models of debris flow susceptibility were calculated by Frequency ratio (Fr). Lithology (igneous complex) was found to be important debris flows-related factor in the study area. The precision of the results was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. According to the area under the curve (AUC) the models of all flow track and natural breaks and all flow track and geometrical interval were 0.83 and 0.84, respectively, showing a practically identical predictive capacity.

Introduction

Road networks play a vital role in maintaining a functioning modern society. Natural hazards, such as debris flows, can significantly impact the flow of vehicles and cargo along road networks. Unlike traffic disruptions that result from accidents or maintenance activities, natural disasters are capable of destroying large numbers of roads and usually cover vast areas (Bíl et al., 2015). The vulnerability of transport infrastructures exposed to geological hazards has attracted much attention recently. To assess these issues quantitatively, operational measures are needed. Transportation agencies can use operational measures to prioritize road maintenance as well as to avoid causing unnecessary disturbances in the planning of roadwork (Jenelius et al., 2006).

Mountainous environments are highly unstable. An increasing intensity of human land use on mountainous terrain has led to an increase in natural hazards (Kellerer-Pirklbauer, 2002). Furthermore, road construction on a hillslope increases the slope above the road and stress on the back of the slope. Thus, a hillslope that was in stable condition before the road was constructed may become unstable because of water ingress (Regmi et al., 2014).

Dry Central Andes of Argentina is affected by various natural geologic processes. Nevertheless, debris flows, mainly triggered by heavy rainfall or by rapid snowmelt, are the most common type of landslide processes and occur frequently in the Central Andes, causing damages and economic losses in the region. Debris flow susceptibility maps yield valuable information for planners and engineers who implement land use strategies, not only in the design stages of road infrastructure, but also in the stages of hazard mitigation to which the that infrastructure are exposed. Since the occurrence of small slide on the head of the basin has a great potential to initiate debris flows, the undisturbed morphological conditions before slides occurred can be inferred from landforms in the vicinity of the slide polygons. Süzen and Doyuran, 2004a, Süzen and Doyuran, 2004b, Nefeslioglu et al., 2008 used an approach called “seed cells” in generating decision rules of landslide occurrence. Seed cells are located in a buffer zone along the crown and flanks of each landslide.

Many recent studies using GIS to evaluate debris flow susceptibility have applied probabilistic models, such as frequency ratios and seed cells (Achour et al., 2018, Bai et al., 2010, Che et al., 2012, Dholakia et al., 2015, Esper Angillieri, 2013, Esper Angillieri and Perucca, 2014, Wang et al., 2011).

Seventeen potential debris flow-prone basins have been identified on a segment of route N° 150 in the Agua Negra river basin, Argentina (Esper Angillieri and Fernandez, 2017), potentially exposing, this sector, to economic and life losses. This study analyzes six different scenarios to debris flow susceptibility assessment. Although, each scenario and model, has been applied successfully to resolve real problems with others specific studies, these methods have never been applied or compared for debris flow susceptibility modeling in the Andes of Argentina.

Therefore, the current study presents debris flow susceptibility maps using a widely-accepted model, a statistical method (frequency ratio model), and evaluates and compares the performance of these six models of debris flow susceptibility assessment for an important segment of a route on the Dry Andes of San Juan in the Agua Negra river basin, Argentina.

Section snippets

Study area

The Quebrada de Agua Negra basin (Fig. 1) is located in a segment of the Frontal Cordillera, in the Iglesia Department, 206 km from San Juan City, San Juan Province, Argentina. The area includes a section of 150 Road in the Quebrada de Agua Negra, which provides access to the International Agua Negra Pass (Argentina – Chile) and future international tunnel. The drainage basin's area is approximately 420 km2. Basin elevations range from 2634 m to 6180 m, with a mean value of 4490 m, while slopes

Material and methods

Fieldwork; high resolution satellite imagery (SPOT 5 with a 2.5 m spatial resolution) from Google EarthTM; orthorectified basemap satellite imagery from ArcGIS online (Esri, 2014) digital topographic data (Aster GDEM) and GIS technology (ESRI's ArcGis 10.3) were used to produce the debris flow inventory map (Fig. 1). Three mapping methodologies were selected to compile the inventory: all flow track (landslide detachment zone, main flow track, and the accumulation zone), flow track without the

Evaluation of inventory map and debris flows-related factors

Fifty-nine debris flows were identified in the study area by evaluating satellite imagery (Fig. 1). They covered an area of 12.52 km2 and encompassed 2.97% of the study area (420.79 km2). Only 47 debris flows were used for susceptibility analysis; the rest were reserved for verification purposes.

To calculate frequency ratios, values for each of the 15 debris flow-related factors were input into raster grids with 30-m resolution.

Table 1 shows the class debris flows-related factors and frequency

Conclusions

This paper presented an approach for identifying the most vulnerable points to debris flows susceptibility along a significant mountain road. Six models — never before compared in the literature — were used to assess debris flow susceptibility in the study area. A debris flow inventory map and 15 maps of debris flow-related factors were applied to simulate the models. Findings indicated that the classes of debris flows-related factors most sensitive to the occurrence of debris flows in the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge to anonymous reviewer and the funding received from CONICET (Argentinean National Council of Scientific and Technological Research); CICITCA (Secretary of Science and Technology UNSJ) to support this research. And CIGEOBIO by providing funds for ArcGIS 10.3 software license.

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