Assessment of Mass Movement Hazard Zonation using the Japan Road Institute Method along the Chendar-Shahrak Road, Taleghan, Iran

One of the most important  natural hazards which threatens  the roads in mountainous regions are hillslope instabilities. This phenomenon is more frequent while  the roads are under construction.  Indentification of dangerous and susceptible areas to mass movement is especially important in order to implement some measures to control these natural phenomena.In this study mass movement hazard zonation of  Chendar-Shahrak Road, Taleghan was performed using Japan Road Institute Method. This method rates 12 effective factors in slope instabilities. In this research, first by considering the shape of gradient, polygons were made around the road and each polygon was considered as a work unit and the parameters were rated in each polygon.The results show that in the part of the road  without retainers, 9.85% of  the road is susceptible, 13.62% probably susceptible and 76.5% stable to mass movement. Then by using air photos, landsat images and field controls, the inventory map of mass movements aroud the road was prepared.  Then mass movement zonation map of the area which was prepared using Japan Road Institute Method was evaluated using Sum of Quality. The results show that Japan Road Institute Method is a suiatable method for performing mass movement hazard zonation around the roads.