Comparative Determination of the Probability of Landslide Ocurrences and Susceptibility in Central Quito, Ecuador

Abstract

The study compares among traditional heuristic methodologies such as the Mora - Vahrson method with a statistical method named Logical Fuzzy in order to determine an improvement in the determination of the susceptibility and spatial distribution of landslides. The validation of the Fuzzy Logic methodology, diminishes the subjectivity of the heuristic methods obtaining results that are close to the reality, independently of the origin of the concurrent geodynamic phenomena. The Metropolitan District of Quito has been characterized to have prone sectors landslides in the rainy season and being seismically active. The result of these methodologies yielded different models that have been defined by means of an adjustment, which agrees with the reality of the area. Therefore, the validation of the susceptibility to landslides in this sector of Quito, with the new proposed methodologies, will be certainly a vital instrument for the elaboration of hazard mapping in other sectors of the city as well as in other cities within the Inter-Andean area.