Wayanad was among Kerala districts that ranked high on ISRO ‘Landslide Atlas’

Wayanad ranks high in ISRO's Landslide Atlas, highlighting vulnerability to landslides and forest fragmentation in Kerala.

Wayanad, which is grappling with the horror of the deadly July 30 landslide disaster, was among several places in Kerala that had featured high on a national-level database created by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2023 based on exposure to landslides in terms of “key socio-economic parameters.”

Among 147 districts in 17 States and two Union Territories, Wayanad ranked 13th, while Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram and Kozhikode ranked third, fifth, seventh and tenth respectively in the Landslide Atlas of India prepared by the National Remote Sensing Centre, one of the ISRO centres, in February 2023.

Rudraprayag in Uttaranchal was ranked first in the Landslide Atlas, which specifically looked at landslide-prone Western Ghats and Himalayan regions. “The vulnerability of the inhabitants and households is more significant in the Western Ghats due to the very high population and household density, especially in Kerala, even when fewer landslides exist than in the Himalayan regions,” the document said. It further noted that the “steep escarpments of the Western Ghats record occurrences of landslides, but however, these are primarily controlled by the soil cover on the slopes.”

A recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), while examining human-wildlife conflict in Kerala, had noted the extent of the fragmentation of forest land in Wayanad district.

“As per the Management Plan of Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, forest land of Wayanad district in 1950 was 1,811.35 sq km which was reduced to 863.86 sq km in 2021. There is a reduction of 947.49 sq km forest with corresponding increase in area under plantation, cultivation, etc., leading to fragmentation of the once continuous vegetation cover,” the Compliance Audit Report of the CAG for the year ended March 31, 2022, tabled in the Kerala Legislative Assembly on July 11 2024 observed.

The ISRO database covered “seasonal, event-based and route-wise” landslide inventories for the 1998-2022 period. The event-based component looked at some of the major disasters that had occurred across India, including the 2021 landslide at Puthumala in Wayanad, Kerala. Ernakulam district in Kerala ranked 15th, Idukki 18th and Kottayam, 24th in the ISRO Landslide Atlas. Other Kerala districts which found a place in it included Kannur (26), Thiruvananthapuram (28), Pathanamthitta (33), Kasaragod (44), Kollam (48) and Alappuzha (138).

In the preface to the Landslide Atlas, ISRO chairman S. Somanath noted that ISRO has been actively working on landslide disaster response and mitigation under its Disaster Management Support (DMS) initiative.