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1 Department of Geography, University College Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester CH1 4BJ, UK (e-mail: s.miller{at}chester.ac.uk)
2 Mines and Geology Division, Ministry of Lands and the Environment, Hope Gardens, Kingston 6, Jamaica
The St. Thomas district of Jamaica is prone to slope failure, which has resulted in extensive damage and in some cases loss of life. To reduce the effect from landslides, there was an urgent need to map and assess areas that may be prone to future failure. The interpretation of aerial photographs, together with geomorphological mapping and field surveys, was used to produce inventory maps of the landslides. The factors conditioning the slopes for failure were assessed and a weighting value was assigned to them. The weighting was achieved by using the principle of Bayesian conditional probability. The weighted factors were combined in a geographical information system (GIS) to produce a landslide susceptibility model for the study area. Comparison of the model with the existing landslides showed that 97% of the landslides fell within the high and very high susceptibility zones of the model. Comparison of the model with landslides that occurred during 2002, and that were not used in the construction of the model, shows that 83 of the 89 slides that occurred fell within the high and very high susceptibility zones. The landslide susceptibility model will be one of the first steps in assessing the risks that landslides pose to lives and new developments (housing, agriculture, physical infrastructure) in the region.
