The Rethymnon Prefecture in the Crete Island, Greece, suffers from severe landslide phenomena due to its complicated geological structure with intensive tectonic fragmentation. This research applies the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method for landslide susceptibility analysis in the Potamon watershed located inside the Rethymnon Prefecture. The following landslide conditioning factors were selected: geological formations, slope angle, aspect, curvature, distance to faults, distance to roads, distance to rivers, land use types and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) extracted from a Landsat-ETM satellite image. A landslide susceptibility map is prepared on the basis of available digital data. The landslide susceptibility map is validated through the comparison of the results with the already documented landslides occurring in the study area. The results indicate that the predicted susceptibility map is in good agreement with the past landslide occurrences, and, therefore, the map is trustworthy for future land-use planning of the study watershed.

Date Published: 12 August 2014
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9229, Second International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2014), 92290D (12 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2066292

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9229:
Second International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2014)
Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis; Kyriacos Themistocleous; Silas Michaelides; Giorgos Papadavid, Editor(s)