Geological and climatic controls on landslide susceptibility and hazard along the Amarnath pilgrimage corridor, Kashmir Himalaya

Landslides are a recurrent and increasingly consequential hazard across the Himalaya, where steep terrain, tectonically weakened lithologies, climatic variability, and expanding anthropogenic activity interact to destabilize slopes. This study assesses landslide susceptibility along the Baltal-Amarnath-Panjtarni-Poshpathri pilgrimage corridor in the upper Sind catchment, Jhelum basin of the Kashmir Himalaya, India, using an integrated framework that combines high-resolution remote sensing, field-based geological mapping, geotechnical investigations, and climate-data analysis. We developed a meso-scale landslide susceptibility model at 1:10,000 m using 18 conditioning factors and evaluated against field-verified landslide events. The model achieved AUC values of 0.80 for the success-rate (training) curve and 0.86 for the prediction-rate (validation) curve, indicating good model fit and predictive capability, respectively. About 16% is classified as highly susceptible and 68.1% as moderately susceptible to slope failures along the corridor. Landslides are concentrated primarily on steep, structurally deformed lithological formations, debris-mantled slopes modified by road cuts, and active drainage lines. Structural and kinematic analyses indicate that slope instability is strongly influenced by discontinuities and weak lithological units associated with the Main Central Thrust zone in the area. Climate analysis indicates a warming trend of nearly 2 °C in recent decades, substantial interannual variability in snow cover, and an increasing influence of extreme precipitation events, including cloudbursts and intense monsoonal rainfall. During the annual Amarnath pilgrimage season, rainfall-driven hydrological forcing emerges as a major trigger of debris flows, rockfalls, and flash floods, particularly within weak and structurally controlled lithological assemblages. These findings demonstrate that landslide activity along the high-exposure corridor reflects the coupled influence of geological structure, climatic variability, and anthropogenic slope modification. Our study provides a scientifically grounded basis for scale-appropriate susceptibility assessment and risk reduction through the integration of Earth observation, field validation, geotechnical characterization, and real-time hydro-meteorological monitoring to improve the safety and resilience of pilgrimage infrastructure in the rapidly changing Himalayan environment.