A comprehensive framework for landslide risk assessment of archaeological sites in Gujarat, India

Landslides, even shallow ones, can displace and destroy the fragile archaeological record. Therefore, it is essential to develop a comprehensive risk assessment and predict the sites at risk before a disaster, which this study aims to provide for 508 archaeological sites associated with Indus civilization and regional Chalcolithic cultures in Gujarat, India. As a hazard inventory for the study area is not available, this study integrates multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), satellite remote sensing, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) first to generate a landslide susceptibility map and then to use it for assessing the landslide risk of archaeological sites. Fifteen parameters, viz., elevation, slope, aspect, curvature, average rainfall, drainage density, Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), Stream Power Index (SPI), lithology, soil type, geomorphology, distance from lineaments, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Land Use Land Cover (LULC), and distance from roads were selected to determine susceptibility. The weights of each parameter were derived using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The novelty of this study lies in the spatial overlay of the area of the sites and landslide susceptibility to measure the value loss of the archaeological sites. The results revealed that three of the 508 sites studied are at high risk, and 214 are at medium risk of landslides. With this proposed methodology, this study generates a new dataset on landslide susceptibility for the study area. In addition, it attempts to provide an integrated risk assessment framework for the archaeological sites in India that aids in identifying and mitigating risks.