GIS based landslide hazard evaluation and zonation – A case from Jeldu District, Central Ethiopia Tilahun Hamza 1 , Tarun Kumar Raghuvanshi * School of Earth Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Addis Ababa University, PO Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Received 17 November 2015; accepted 24 May 2016 KEYWORDS Digital elevation model; Hazard index; Landslide; Landslide hazard zonation Abstract In the present study landslide hazard evaluation and zonation (LHZ) was carried out in Jeldu District in Central Ethiopia, about 156 km West of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. Through field based inventory mapping and image interpretation 34 past landslides were mapped in the study area. The governing factors; aspect, slope and elevation, were determined from the digital elevation model (DEM), which was obtained from the ASTER satellite. Lithology was adopted from the geological map of Ethiopia (1:2,000,000), while the soil and land use/land cover were pro- cessed from Landsat + ETM satellite data. All governing factors were statistically analyzed to find the correlation with the past landslides. In this study, statistical – probabilistic approach was used to rate the governing factors and then customized raster calculation was made in GIS environment to develop the LHZ map. The results revealed that 12% (5.64 km 2 ) of the study area falls under no hazard, 27% (12.69 km 2 ) as low hazard, 32% (15.04 km 2 ) as moderate hazard, 21% (9.87 km 2 ) as high hazard and the rest 8% (3.76 km 2 ) as very high hazard. The validation of LHZ map shows that, 92% of past landslides fall in high or very high hazard zones, while 6% fall in medium and only 2% in low landslide hazard zones. The validation of LHZ map thus, reasonably showed that the adopted methodology produced satisfactory results and the delineated hazard zones may practically be applied for the regional planning and development of infrastructures in the area. Ó 2016 The Authors. Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction Landslides, one of the major natural disasters, have resulted into significant injury and loss to the human life and damaged property and infrastructure throughout the world (Girma et al., 2015; Raghuvanshi et al., 2014; Pan et al., 2008; Kanungo et al., 2006; Crozier and Glade, 2005; Dai et al., 2002; Parise and Jibson, 2000; Varnes, 1996). In general, heavy rainfall, high relative relief and complex fragile geology with increased manmade activities, such as roads on mountains have resulted in increased landslide * Corresponding author. Tel.: +251 911 875983. E-mail addresses: tile.2006@yahoo.com (T. Hamza), tkraghuvan shi@gmail.com, tarunraghuvanshi@yahoo.com (T.K. Raghuvanshi). 1 Tel.: +251 917831387. Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Journal of King Saud University – Science (2016) xxx, xxx–xxx King Saud University Journal of King Saud University – Science www.ksu.edu.sa www.sciencedirect.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jksus.2016.05.002 1018-3647 Ó 2016 The Authors. Production and Hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Please cite this article in press as: Hamza, T., Raghuvanshi, T.K. GIS based landslide hazard evaluation and zonation – A case from Jeldu District, Central Ethiopia. Journal of King Saud University – Science (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jksus.2016.05.002