Landslide Distribution and Susceptibility Assessment in NW Pakistan: Insights from Field Observations and Factor Analysis

The Hindukush region in Northwest Pakistan is a mountainous area that often faces natural disasters, such as landslides, flash floods, glacial lake outbursts, and debris flow, that alter the landscape and damage property. This study focused on the Chitral area of the Hindukush region to assess the landslide distribution and susceptibility using field observations and factor analysis. Nine landslide causative factors were selected and weighted using Geographic Information System (GIS)-based Frequency Ratio (FR) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) techniques. The factors included slope, aspect, rainfall, land cover, lithology, seismicity, distance to faults, streams, and roads. Landslide susceptibility maps were generated and classified into five categories: very high, high, moderate, low, and very low. Various landslides were observed in the field comprising debris flow, debris slide, soil erosion, and rockfall. Rockfall in the study area indicates active seismicity in the Hindukush region. Furthermore, the area under the curve method validated the results, which gave 0.80 for FR and 0.73 for AHP. The results showed that most of the landslides in the study area were caused by steep slopes of mountains, followed by precipitation. The high landslide susceptibility zones in the study area matched well with the field-based landslide collections, which showed the reliability of the mapping methods. These findings can help plan and implement measures in the Hindukush region to reduce the risk and impact of landslides, such as early warning systems, slope stabilization, land use regulation, and evacuation plans.