Environmental Justice and the Marginalised: Landslide Susceptibility of Dalits in Idukki District, Kerala, India

Ratheesh P, government of Kerala
T.V. Sekher, IIPS

Climate change-driven landslides have been pervasive in the Indian state of Kerala for the last few years. This study addresses the unequal exposure of underprivileged communities to landslides in the district. The objective of the study is to prepare a landslide susceptibility map of Idukki district and to identify the extent to which the Dalits of the region are exposed to landslides using overlay analysis. The paper used a GIS-based multi-criteria discussion-making approach, the Analytic Hierarchy Process, to map the landslide susceptibility zones of the Idukki District. Overlay analysis is used to identify the extent of Dalits' exposure to landslides in the District. Narrations of fatal landslide survivors were used to explain the reasons behind their spatial location in landslide susceptible areas. Dalit communities accounted for nearly 65.5 percent of all landslide fatalities in the district since 2018. As per the study, 43.20 percent of the district's area is highly to very susceptible to landslide, and nearly 37.9 percent of the Dalit population in the district live in these regions. Dalit communities are disproportionately susceptible to landslides in Idukki district.

Keywords: Population, Environment, and Climate Change, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Spatial Demography

See paper.