Case study of landslide characteristics and hazard assessment in Taibai County, central Qinling Mountains

Taking Taibai County in Shaanxi Province as an example, this paper has analyzed geological environment conditions of landslides in central Qinling Mountains. It is emphasized that in the mountainous area under thick vegetation, unusual torrential rain and 4 kinds of human engineering activities composed of farming, house building, road construction and mining engineering play crucial roles in triggering landslides. 4 typical landslide types, i.e., collapse, landslide, debris flow and unstable slope, are distinguished and analyzed, and regional macroscopic distribution of landslide is summarized. 9 major factors influencing and triggering landslide are extracted. Quantified landslide hazard assessment based on information content model within Taibai County was carried out based on the thought of applying landslide developing pattern of the detailed investigated area to whole regional assessment. The result shows that the high hazard zones mainly lie in the residential area of northern basin and local areas along southern river and road in the county. The quantitative verification result shows that this hazard distribution feature is consistent with the real distribution of landslides. It is indicated that the landslide hazard assessment method with information content model is well applicable to central Qinling mountainous area.