The Kuvasali landslide disaster in Malava, Western Kenya, which caused harmful geo-environmental hazards to the villagers in August 2007, formed the premise of this paper. The existing landslide vulnerability occurren...The Kuvasali landslide disaster in Malava, Western Kenya, which caused harmful geo-environmental hazards to the villagers in August 2007, formed the premise of this paper. The existing landslide vulnerability occurrence ratings have been identified and documented using participatory approaches to ascertain the adoptive indigenous methods, which helped mitigation against the negative impacts by determining the slope steepness using Abney level. The geological set up, settlement and climatic factors, relating to landslides, revealed that the affected homesteads were on a steep slope of approximately 70%, with underlying metamorphosed basement rocks comprising ofgneisses, schists and granite intrusions. The steep escarpment overlying these rocks, where the landslide occurred, consists of volcanic rocks and black cotton clayey soils. The slope has scattered vegetation cover due to farming, while the low-lying area is planted with sugar cane and maize plantations. The landslide disaster led to loss of lives, injuries and damage to property. Natural resources, including water points, suffered siltation. Mitigation measures such as geo-hazard mapping and zoning, awareness training and campaigns for the local people focusing on hazard-prone areas resulting from poor land use practices have been recommended.展开更多
文摘The Kuvasali landslide disaster in Malava, Western Kenya, which caused harmful geo-environmental hazards to the villagers in August 2007, formed the premise of this paper. The existing landslide vulnerability occurrence ratings have been identified and documented using participatory approaches to ascertain the adoptive indigenous methods, which helped mitigation against the negative impacts by determining the slope steepness using Abney level. The geological set up, settlement and climatic factors, relating to landslides, revealed that the affected homesteads were on a steep slope of approximately 70%, with underlying metamorphosed basement rocks comprising ofgneisses, schists and granite intrusions. The steep escarpment overlying these rocks, where the landslide occurred, consists of volcanic rocks and black cotton clayey soils. The slope has scattered vegetation cover due to farming, while the low-lying area is planted with sugar cane and maize plantations. The landslide disaster led to loss of lives, injuries and damage to property. Natural resources, including water points, suffered siltation. Mitigation measures such as geo-hazard mapping and zoning, awareness training and campaigns for the local people focusing on hazard-prone areas resulting from poor land use practices have been recommended.
