Abstract

In recent years, advances in Earth-surface measurement and remote sensing technologies have created a variety of digital topographic data and satellite images. The development of data processing technologies has made it easier to exploit the aforementioned sources in many fields, especially effective in geohazards investigation and research, including landslide study. In this paper, the results of 3D-relief analysis and high-resolution image interpretation for landslide inventory mapping will be presented. A pilot study area was carried out at Tam Chung commune, Muong Lat district, Thanh Hoa province. As results, 4 old landslides were interpreted from 3D-relief and 222 new landslides were interpreted from Google Earth images. The field surveys has approached 97 of them (equivalent to ~42.92% of the total interpreted ones). It confirmed that 94/97 interpreted landslides had actually occurred. Therefore, the accuracy of interpretation reaches ~96.91%, which have demonstrated the effectiveness of the used method in identifying historic landslides. Although there are still some shortcomings due to the availability of necessary data, the results have shown the advantages of the used method when it is applied in areas with a complete set of topographic and remote sensing data. The used method can be further developed to monitor the change of the topographic surface over time, thus, it can effectively serve the landslide mapping at large scale.