Georgia with Tbilisi as the capital, pointed between intersection of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, is a new born country after the Russia disintegration. Geographically is bordered with the Black Sea in the west, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. These territories cover 69,700 square kilometers (26,911 square mil) and rises around 5,000 m above sea level. In general the region characterized as interconnected mountain ranges (largely of volcanic origin) and plateaus with slope degree less than 3,400 meters.
Statistic data shows a numerous disaster event in Georgia. As a volcanic areas earthquake, erosion, and avalanche recorded in this area. The world most known earthquake existed in 1998 (Spitak earthquake) and 1991 (Racha earthquake). Multi hazardous event has been made suffered Georgia in casualties and economic losses.
Climate condition plays a significant trajectory for hazardous event, namely landslide, floods and mudflows after heavy rainfall season at certain location in hilly side of Georgia. In the early spring a huge process of snow melting and/or combine with rains can also drive flood and mudflows.
II. Objective
The objectives of this study are: 1. Calculate combines factors for landslide cases in Georgia, and generate a composite index map showing the ranking of these hazards using Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE). 2. Calculating exposure information for multi-hazards and different elements-at-risk in Georgia territories and creates a hazard map.
III. Landslide Hazard Assessment using SMCE
SMCE, in short, is a tool to assist stakeholder to choose a better options based on multi criteria input by combining and weighting each criteria (normalized) to create a solution. A set of spatial representation maps of each criteria, which are grouped, standardized and weighted in a criteria tree used as input process.
Criteria that were used are geology, slope, fault, land cover and landslide. All criteria weighted and normalized to generate a hazard map using two SMCE method; direct and pairwise. The aim is to see different weighted result in those maps.
Weighting value in Direct method as follows 0.22 (geology), 0.35 (slope), 0.18 (fault), 0.22 (land cover) and 0.03 (landslide). The weighting value creates a susceptibility map as shows in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Landslide Susceptibility Map with Direct Method in Georgia
To compare with different weighting value, we use pairwise method with the weighted value 0.34 (geology), 0.22 (slope), 0.11 (fault), 0.18 (land cover) and 0.14 (landslide). The weighting value creates a susceptibility map as shows in Figure 2.
Landslide Susceptibility Map (Direct Method) Figure 2. Landslide Susceptibility Map with Pairwise Method in Georgia
Both figures used the same criteria for SMCE assessment but have different point on weighting the criteria. The dominant criteria in Figure 1 are slope and the second one is geology. It shows the decreasing of high susceptibility area for geology as great influence factor. But if check the histogram of both maps did not a significant difference. Figure 3. Direct Method Landslide Susceptibility Map Histogram
The classification of susceptibility area for direct method (Figure 1) is 0.75 % (low), 55.11% (moderate) and 44.14% (high). Histogram for Pairwise method has the same distribution 0.62% (low), 55.63% (moderate) and 42.75% (high). See Figure 3 and 4 for detail. Landslide Susceptibility Map (Pairwise Method) Figure 4. Pairwise Method Landslide Susceptibility Map Histogram
These results explain that, in Georgia territory, both geology and slope play a significant role in driven landslide event. As a mountainous area these factor determine the development of hazardous process of natural and manmade disaster. In the ideal scenario climate criteria should be considered as main input for this calculation, like heavy rainfall which can trigger rapid landslide process, but in this exercise is not included. Another minor result is landslide validation calculation that failed to perform, since there is no historical landslide event in the original landslide map and its table attributes.
IV. Exposure Information for Multi-Hazards and Different Elements at Risk
The complexity of the geological structure, geomorphologic diversity and hydro-climatic make the Southern Caucasus (including Georgia) vulnerable to natural disasters, namely earthquake (EQ), flooding (FL), landslides (LS), mudflows (MF), rock falls (RF), wildfires (WF), snow avalanches (SA), drought (DR), windstorm (WS) and hailstorm (HS).
Furthermore the local populations which have main economic activities related to natural resources exploitation also induced the development vulnerability of environment to natural disaster processes. Green mining and agricultures practices were not applied to support nature development of the resources and create vulnerable environment.
The exposure of multi-hazard event on element at risk based on the structural of Georgia region classified into level of community, district and region. Building, population, forest, crops and pipeline were used as element at risk in this exercise. a. Building
Building, as element at risk, is vulnerable to various disasters event, Table 1 shows ten communities that has building highest prone to earthquake, flood, landslide and wildfire. The calculation shows five communities that vulnerable to two hazardous disasters, they are Sokhumi, Martkopi, Borjomi, Gldani- Nadzaladevi and Vake-Saburtalo.
Table 1. Ten communities in Georgia with the highest exposure of buildings for earthquakes, flooding, landslides and wildfires
Related to earthquake, top-ten communities located in the high prone area of earthquake. Earthquakes are considered as the most devastating disaster and causing a huge economic losses and casualties. Buildings in these regions placed in density populated area and extend along mountainous of Caucasus region which one of the most active seismic in the Alpine-Himalayan collision belt. Figure 5 shows the distribution of communities with highest building vulnerability to earthquake.
Figure 5. Top-ten Communitiy with Highest Vulnerable Building to Earthquake in Georgia
Heavy rainfalls and melted glacial water from Caucasus mountainous will had flown a high volume of water into Georgia regions. Sokhumi community, as well as to earthquake, also threatened by flood hazard. The impacted community to flood hazard were distributed from hilly to lowland area. Figure 6 shows the distribution.
Figure 6. Top-ten Community with Highest Vulnerable Building to Flood in Georgia
Highest Building Exposure to Earthquake by Community Lagodekhi Tsalenjikha Telavi Gurjaani Kolkhida Akhmeta Sadakhlo Zemo Alvani Kvareli Sokhumi Sokhumi Zugdidi Kobuleti Abasha Samtredia Surami Martkopi Borjomi Krtsanisi Khashuri Highest Building Exposure to Flood by Community Highest Building Exposure to Landslide by Community Chiatura Ortabatumi Gldani-Nadzaladevi Lisi Vake-Saburtalo Mtatsminda-Krtsanisi Bakuriani Besleti Borjomi Tavisupleba As Georgia located in medium-level of seismicity, the seismic activity can create strong earthquakes that could also generate the landslides process in the region. Top ten community with highest vulnerable of building to landslide hazard were located in red zone (high) landslide prone area. Compare to CENN (2012) shows the same result.
Figure 7. Top-ten Community with Highest Vulnerable Building to Landslide in Georgia
Wildfire could be induced by natural phenomena, like drought, and also by human who occupied the prone area. For instance to convert forest to cultivated area people make fire for economical and time consuming reason. But many of this action could not be controlled as the original plan and causing devastating to environment, crops , air quality and community health. Compare to CENN (2012) calculation this result shows similar pattern (Figure 8).
Figure 8. Top-ten Community with Highest Vulnerable Building to Wildfire in Georgia
Related to building, population as well is the devastated element when the disaster occurs because people life inside the building. Its a matter of time when the disasters happen in the night or the day, as long as people aware the casualties can be minimized.
b. Population Based on region and six disastrous events, the top three most devastated regions in average are Apkhazeti, Kakheti and S. Z. Svaneti. These indicate by a huge number of populations that will get negative impact in term of earthquake hazard, between 100,000 to more than 400,000 live. Although the populated regions were Achara and Kvemo Kartli, both of this regions relatively had low impact on population. Furthermore related with flood and landslide they are relatively still in top of number of impacted population as shows in Table 2.
Highest Building Exposure to Wildfire by Community Akhalsopeli Akhalsopeli Akhalsopeli Tsilkani Kumisi Gardabani Teleti Vake-Saburtalo Gldani-Nadzaladevi Isani-Samgori Martkopi Gamarjveba Table 2. Number of Impacted Population due to Hazardous Disasters in Georgia
CENN (2012) reported the same result as displayed in Table 2. Despite the result of the assessment, there is still no strong evidence to support this prediction due to the validity of population and building data in Georgia or the region itself, which is too fortunate that both of these elements at risk did not updated and validated before.
c. Pipelines Another object that could affect the community and economic growth due to disaster event is pipelines route, known as South Caucasus Pipeline. Those pipeline transport natural gas from gas field in the Azerbaijan (the Caspian Sea) to Turkey. Georgia, as a transit location, has rights to take 5% of the gas flow per year (Wikipedia, 2014). Pipelines route in Georgia is shows in Figure 9.
Natural Gas Pipelines Route in Georgia R. L. K. Svanet Guria Kakheti Tbilisi Shida Kartli Kvemo Kartli S. Javakheti S. Z. Svaneti Imereti Apkhazeti M. Mtianeti Figure 9. Pipelines Across Region in Georgia
Earthquake, landslides and rock fall are considered as the disastrous event with can cost a huge loss to income for economic stability. Based on those three hazard, calculation of the threatened pipelines classified into three categories; low, moderate and high. Model shows that pipelines which lay across region Mtskheta Mtianeti, Kvemo Kartli, Samtskhe Javakheti, Emereti and Tbilisi were the most endangered due to hazards occurrence.
Table 3. Disaster Impact on Pipelines by Region in Georgia (Meter)
Achara All exposures category related to pipelines should be considered, even in the low level will affected a long pipelines route. For earthquake about 607200 m pipelines will endangered in moderate level, 711200 m will damage by landslide in low level and 758800 m by rock fall also in low level (see Table 3).
V. Recommendation
Considering the geology, geography, climate change and the results of the above calculations of all elements at risk Georgian government should give more attention to disaster risk management. Given the significant level of losses both to the population, buildings, natural gas pipelines and other element at risk, as well as validation of the present supporting data held, the next step to be taken is to validate the accuracy of the data, especially population and building in the region, as well other element at risk.
Environmentally based development planning and considered disaster risk management comprehensively should be a reference for the safety of society and the environment itself.
VI. Reference
Westen, C. V., Damen, M. 2012. Training Package on National Scale Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment Exercise Book National Scale Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment, with an example of Georgia. UNU- DRM Centre for Spatial Analysisand Disaster Risk Management, University Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Enschede, The Netherlands
CENN, 2012. Atlas of Natural Hazards and Risks of Georgia, Caucasus Environment NGO Network (CENN), Tbilisi, Georgia.