Risk Assessment of Riverine Terraces: The Case of the Chenyulan River Watershed in Nantou County, Taiwan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to establish a method of hazard assessment for the river terraces along the Chenyulan River and use 40 of them as protected objects. Using a geographic information system, the researchers extracted nine parameters for such terraces. These are length to attack shore, distance away from fault, distance from river channel, number of creeks and streams with possibility of debris flows, height above stream level, average slope degree, geology, number of erosion ditches, and distance from landslide area behind. Next, the weightings identified by analytic hierarchy process analysis were used as the basis for grading the various factors affecting river terraces. Hazard assessment for the river terraces then proceeded via totaling of the potential trends of the various factors and the protected objects, as well as comparison of historical disaster conditions and satellite images. The results showed that there were 8 high-risk river terraces, 14 medium–high-risk river terraces, 14 medium–low-risk river terraces and 4 low-risk river terraces. The evaluation of the current conditions of the settlement environment through parameter weighting has a certain accuracy and reference value in reducing the disaster impact of the riverine terrace settlement.