SPATIAL MODELING OF RAIN-TRIGGERED LANDLSIDES

A case study in Southern Leyte Province, Philippines

J. S. M. FOWZE1, D. BUENA2, A. S. DAAG3, M. K.HAZARIKA1 AND
L. SAMARKOON1
1

Geoinformatics Center, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

National Mapping and Resource Information Agency, Taguig City, Philippines
3
Philippines Institute of Seismology and Volcanology, Quezon City, Philippines
Corresponding author: J.S.Muhammathu.Fowze@ait.ac.th
2

KEYWORDS: Rain-triggered landslides, SINMAP model, Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS

ABSTRACT: Almost all preparatory and triggering causal factors are well set in place in the case
of Philippines to make its sloping terrains vulnerable to landslides; the history of landslide
occurrences stands as foolproof evidence. A review of the past events however indicates that
rainfall has, inter alia, been offering the triggering effect to cause most of the devastating landslides.
A number of such landslides have occurred in the Southern Leyte province of Philippines causing
considerable loss of life and damage to properties.
Facilitating towards managing the associated landslide risk in Southern Leyte it was aimed at
delineating the areas that are prone to rain-triggered landslides. The SINMAP model which
combines a mechanistic slope stability model with a steady-state hydrology model was employed in
way accomplishing this, much needed, task. Elevation data in the form of a raster GIS layer was the
main input for the model. Mapping of past landslide initiation points was also completed with the
aid of satellite based remotely sensed data and a GPS survey.
The SINMAP model, with a careful attribution of the requisite geotechnical and hydraulic
parameters, delineated 47% of the study area which is about 850 km2 to be unstable and quasistable under extreme rainfall events recorded in the past. This zonation of landslide hazard was
considered to be very satisfactory as 82% of the total recorded landslides were found to fall in the
unstable regions.
1. INTRODUTION
Although a common geological phenomenon in hilly terrains, landslides attract attention when they
become responsible for considerable loss of money and life. In this context, the causes of landslides
have long been studied and it is considered that it would be more appropriate to discuss causal
factors including both conditions and processes than causes per se alone (Popescu, 1996).
Thus ground conditions (e.g. weak materials) are part of the conditions necessary for an unstable
slope to develop, to which the environmental criteria of stress, pore water pressure, and temperature
must be added. Landslide causal factors are divided according to their effect (preparatory or
triggering) and their origin (ground conditions and geomorphological, physical or man-made
processes) (WP/WLI, 1994).
Unfavourable ground conditions and all processes mentioned above are set in place in the case of
the Philippines archipelago to make many parts of it vulnerable to landslides. However, in the
search of landslides causes, attention is often focused on those processes which provoke the greatest
rate of change and a fast change is often identified as having triggered movement (Popescu, 1996).
In line with this, a review of recent catastrophic landslides killing thousands of people and
damaging millions worth of properties in Philippines indicates that most of them were rain-

triggered and associated with typhoons or Inter-Tropical Convergence Zones (Orense 2003, Cabria
and Catane 2003, Orense 2004, Catane et al 2006).
Although disastrous landslide occurrences in Philippines are on the increase, it has been reported
that mitigating the risk associated with landslides is not a widespread practice in Philippines (Zarco
et al 2007). Irrespective of the type of danger, analysis of previous events and prediction of future
occurrences is the key to any activity pertaining to mitigation and management of the associated
risk. The undertaking of this task has very well been supported by the ever developing remote
sensing and GIS technologies and this paper presents the utilization of model, based on remote
sensing and GIS for rain-triggered landslide hazard zonation of a selected area in Philippines.
2. STUDY AREA

LANDSAT TM IMAGE OF SOUTHERN

LEYTE
DATE OF ACQUISITION: June 29, 1992

N
N

STUDY AREA

Google Earth

40

40km

Figure1: Study Area

The study area which covers the Sogod, Silago, Hinuangan, Libagon, St. Bernard, and St. Juan
townships and Panoan Island has an area of approximately 850 km2. It is located within eastern
longitudes 12500 to 12818 and northern latitudes 955 to 1030. The climate of the region is
characterized by pronounced rainfall from November to January with a historic average monthly
rainfall of 178 mm. The rainy period is extended by La Nina phenomeneon. The area is underlain
by volcanic rocks. Conversion of land cover from primary forest to coconut plantation is a common
feature identified in this area. Two of the recent and disastrous landslides had occurred in this area;
namely, the Panoan island landslide of 19th December 2003 and the Guinsaugon landslide of 17th
February 2006.
3. METHODOLOGY
There are many approaches to assess the stability of slopes and landslide hazards. However, a
promising approach to model the rain-triggered landslides at a regional scale combines a
mechanistic infinite slope stability model with hydrologic models. The Stability INdex MAPping

(SINMAP) model based on the above approach was,

therefore, utilized in this study. It is a raster based slope
stability predictive tool. A detailed discussion of the
model is given in Pack et al. (1998).

3.1. Model Variables and Model Parameters

D
hw

Dw

= atan S

Fig. 1

The equation for factor of safety (FS) based on which SINMAP calculates the stability indices takes
the following form after mathematical manipulations.
FS =

C + cos [1 wr ] tan
sin

(1)

'' is the angle of slope (See Fig. 1) and ' is the effective angle of internal friction. C, w, and r
denote the dimensionless cohesion, wetness index, and density ratio respectively and are defined in
the context of SINMAP as shown below.
(2)
C = (Cr + Cs ) /(h s g )
w=

Dw
Ra
= Min
,1
D
T sin

r = w / s

(3)
(4)

R and T which appear in the wetness index equation, eq. (3), are the effective recharge and
material transmissivity. a which also appears in the same equation stands for the specific
catchment area defined as the upslope area per unit contour length with units m2/m. As could be
seen from Fig 1, h is the depth to the plane of failure.
Definition of SINMAP model for a particular region of interest, therefore, requires 2 variables and 3
parameters;
Variables: and a
Parameters: C, , and the ratio R/T
The variables are implicitly input in the form of a DEM for the model to calculate them from inbuilt modules for each and every pixel.
At this point, it needs to be emphasized that it would not simply be possible to model a wide range
of material and climatic conditions by specifying one single value for the parameters. SINMAP
model accounts for this uncertainty as another attracting feature, and is so developed to input these
parameters by specifying lower bound and upper bound values assuming a uniform probability
distribution. Further, the temporal and spatial variability is accounted for by the appropriate choice
of parameters and variables. The water to soil density ratio r defined by equation (3) as the water
to soil density ratio is normally assumed to be 0.5
An inventory of landslide initiation points is also needed as crucial information for validating the
model output.
3.2 Model Inputs
With reference to Section 3.1 above, the SINMAP model inputs could be summarized as follows;
(i) DEM grid theme of the study area,

(ii) geotechnical data: range of C values and range of values

(iii) hydrological data: range of T/R as required by the software
(iv) Inventory of past landslides points theme
3.2.1 DEM Grid Theme

The main input to the model, DEM grid theme, created from a digitized topographic map of scale
1:50,000 collected from the National Mapping and Resource Information Agency of Philippines.
The contours were of 20 m interval.
3.2.2 Geotechnical Data

During the study, it was realized that despite many landslide occurrences, attempts to gather and
document especially geotechnical data which are required for landslide hazard analyses were at a
minimal level. A field visit was, therefore, made with a limited scope. Landslide locations in
accessible areas were inspected and soil samples were collected from 21 landslide locations to give
a cross section of geotechnical data pertaining to the study area. Laboratory index tests were
performed on the collected samples at the Soil Laboratory of the University of Philippines and the
results along with observations on h were used to infer realistic ranges of C and values. As the
observations on most of failed slopes indicated that the surface of rupture is below the root zone,
the contribution of root cohesion, Cr, was assumed to be zero.
3.2.3 Hydrological data

The denomenator T of the hydrologic data input is defind as the vertical integral of the hydraulic
conductivity of soil and is determined by
(5)
T = ks h
where ks is the hydraulic conductivity or the permeability of the material of interest. The results of
the laboratory index tests were also made use of for inferring realistic values of permeability and
then to calculate T.
The numerator R, in the context of SINMAP is defined as the effective recharge for a critical period
of wet weather likely to trigger landslides. Although, the effective recharge is given by
Rainfall Evapotranspiration Deep Percolation

(6)

the evapo-transpiration and deep percolation were assumed negligible in the analysis. The threshold
value of rainfall, 100 mm in 3 days, established by the traffic advisory in Philippines as that triggers
landslides was adopted as the lower bound rainfall value while the extreme event recorded in the
history of the study area i.e. about 700 mm in 3 days, was adopted as the upper bound rainfall value.
3.2.4 Inventory of Past Landslides Points Theme.

Details of some past landslides were available with NAMRIA. In addition, some other recent
landslide points were identified through visually interpreting a SPOT-5 imagery of June 2006.
Landslide initiation points as required for the input was carefully extracted by overlaying the
contour data on the satellite imagery. A GPS survey carried out during the field visit complemented

other landslide initiation points to make a total of them amount to 61.

3.3 EXECUTION OF SINMAP

Five main regions were identified during the field visit based upon the landcover type as could be
attributed with different ranges of parameters. A multi region theme was accordingly prepared
using the supervised classification technique with the Maximum Likelihood Classifier from the
Landsat image of 2002. The model was then executed in the ArcView environment with parameters
that best fit the field conditions.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
751741

718892

Figure 2 shows the Stability Index (SI) map derived

from the SINMAP model. Stability index values, based
on the values of factor of safety, are 0.0 or greater, with
1.0 indicating some level of stability. Six broad classes
have been defined as shown in Table 1 which could be
visualized as different hazard zones.

1161544

1161319 U
%

U
%
U
%
U
%
U
%
U
%

U
%
U
%

SI
Class Predicted State
SI>1.5
1
Stable
1.5>SI>1.25
2
Moderately Stable
1.25>S>1.0
3
Quasi-Stable
1.0>SI>0.5
4
Lower-Threshold
0.5>SI>0.0
5
Upper-Threshold
0.0>SI
6
Defended
Table 1: Stability States

U
%

U
%
U
%

U
%

U
%
U
%

U
%

U
%

U
%

U
%
%
U

U
%
U
%
U
%

U
U%
%
U%
U
%
%%
U
U
U
U%
U%
%
U
%

U
%
U
U%
%
U%
%
U
U%
%
U%
U
%
U%
U%
U U
%
U
%
U
%
U
%
U
%
U
%
U
%

%
U
U
%

U
%

5 Kilometers
U
%

LEGEND:

The statistical summary corresponding to the SI map is

U Landslide points
%
shown in Table 02. The hazard analysis delineated 75.8
Stability Index
Stable
km2 (9% of the total study area) as quasi-stable, 227.5
Moderately Stable
Quasi-stable
2
2
km or (27%) as lower-threshold, and 92.7 km or
Lower Threshold
Upper Threshold
(11%) as upper-threshold zones. These low stability,
Defended
low instability, and medium instability zones make a
Figure 2: Stability Index Map
total of 47% of the total study area. Results of the
overlay of past landslide points on the SI map for the purpose of validating the model output is also
included in the same table. It could be seen that the largest number of landslides (a total of 39
landslides) are found in the lower threshold zone. The upper threshold zone includes 11
landslides while 3 landslides are found to fall in the quasi-stable zone. Collectively, 82% of the
inventoried landslides (61) fall in the quasi or low stability and unstable regions. This indicates that
the efforts for the spatial modeling of landslides in the selected study area and thereby to predict the
future events using the SINMAP model have been successful.
U
%

U
%

719347

752264

1096198

U%
U%
%
U

1096198

Region 1
Region 2
Region 3
Region 4
Region 5
# Landslides
% of Slides

0
0
0
4
3
7
11

Moderately
Stable
0
0
0
1
0
1
2

Area(km2)
% Area

379.2
45

67.4
8

Stable

QuasiStable
0
0
0
3
0
3
5

LowerThreshold
1
3
0
27
8
39
64

UpperThreshold
0
0
0
8
3
11
18

75.8
9

227.5
27

92.7
11

Defended

Total

0
0
0
0
0
0
0

1
3
0
43
14
61
100

0.0
0

842.7
100

Table 2: Statistical Summary for the Analyzed Area

6.0 CONCLUSION

A remote sensing and GIS based deterministic slope stability model, SINMAP, was successfully
utilized to predict the landslide occurrences in the Southern Leyte island of Philippines, which are
mostly rain-triggered. Modeling was carried out within a range of rainfall between and including
established threshold value of rainfall that triggers landslides in the study area, and the extreme
event rainfall recorded in the history. Analytical results indicate that 53% of the study area is stable
state whilst the remaining 47% is in quasi stable and lower and upper threshold states. This zonation
is considered to be very satisfactory as 82% of the inventoried landslides fall in the above zones. In
the light of this results, it is suggested that in the zones identified as quasi-stable and threshold,
consequence analyses be carried out to analyze and assess the associated risk. Having identified the
risk, the same could be minimized by adopting either one or a combination of the following;
modification of slope geometry, drainage, retaining structures, internal slope reinforcement.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to thank the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for providing financial
support and the Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and the National Mapping and
Resource Information Agency for providing with the data used in this study.
REFERENCES
Popescu, M.E. (1996). From Landslide Causes to Landslide Remediation, Special Lecture. Proc.
7th Int. Symp. on Landslides, Trondheim, 1:75-96
WP/WLI: International Geotechnical Societies UNESCO Working Party on World Landslide
Inventory. Working Group on Landslide Causes Popescu, M.E. Chairman. (1994). A suggested
Method for landslide reporting landslide causes, Bulletinn IAGE, 50:71-74
Cabria, H.B., and Catane, S.G., 2003. The 19 December Landslides in Panoan Island, Southern
Leyte, Philippines. QRT Report, National Institute of Geological Sciences, University of the
Philippines, Dilman, Quezon City.
Zarco, M.A.H., Catane, S.G., and Gonzalez, .M.2007.State of the practice in slope mitigation
measures: Focus on the Philippines, Proc. 2nd Regional Training Course, RECLAIM Phase II,
Phuket Thailand.
Pack, R T, D G Tarboton, C N Goodwin (1998) Terrain Stability Mapping with SINMAP, technical
description and users guide for version 1.00," Report Number 4114-0, Terratech Consulting Ltd.,
Salmon Arm, B.C., Canada (www.tclbc.com)