The North Eastern region of the Indian sub-continent has a unique geotectonic position and falls under the highest seismic zone. This region, experiences frequent earthquakes and landslides. Though small in intensity the occurrence of a high intensity earthquake in this region cannot be ruled out.

Landslides caused by earthquakes can make a slope unstable by the inertial loading it imposes or due to lack of strength in the mass of the slope. The causes of Landslides other than earthquakes are natural or man-induced. These natural hazards cause disruption in road connectivity, modes of communication and drainage flow. Above all landslides cause irreparable damage to human life and property.

The hilly areas of the North Eastern region are mostly inter-connected by road.
Landslides in these regions play havoc and put serious constraints on the economic development of the region. But it has been observed that proper hazard mitigation can prevent losses incurred due to landslides.

Earlier studies of natural hazards were carried out using conventional methods, which were time-consuming and lacked consideration of the multiple parameters responsible for these hazards.

Geographical Information System (GIS) technology has only been recently used to evaluate Landslide disasters. The application of GIS with Remote Sensing Data (both optical and microwave) in near real time for landslide disasters has focused on monitoring and micro zoning, with the emphasis on the use of technology in the response, recovery and mitigation phases of the disaster management cycle.

In the last two decades, Remote Sensing (RS) has become an integral tool in various disaster management-monitoring studies. The availability of high resolution, hyper-spectral, multi-temporal optical data along with thermal and microwave data has opened a new field of data fusion and integration for varied applications. The synergistic use of optical and spectral matching analysis needs to be explored.

Keeping in view the importance of natural hazard mitigation in the North Eastern region, the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, under its Jai Vigyan Technology mission, has taken up several projects covering various parts of the NE region. The DST has initiated the Orientation Course on "Applications of GIS in Landslide Hazards Mitigation, with Special reference to NE Region" with the objective to generate manpower in landslide hazards mitigation in the NE region as also to bring about uniformity amongst the various ongoing projects of DST.

• Introduction to environmental earth sciences with emphasis to natural disaster
  
• Characterization & Zonation of Landslide hazards
  
• Monitoring of active and passive Landslides
  
• Inventory of Landslide
  
• Mitigation measures of Landslide
  
• Fundamentals & Application of GIS
  
• Introduction to RS & DIP (optical & microwave)
  
• GIS & RS in risk assessment & vulnerability
  
• Application of GPS for Landslide studies
  
• Creation of spatial database for landslide
  
• Fieldwork preparation for a natural hazard study
  
• Field data processing & analysis
  
• Advanced spatial modeling for natural hazard
  

The course includes four-days of field visits to the Bhalukpong-Bomdila-Tawang section to study the Landslide zones.

The Capital of Arunachal Pradesh, Itanagar is a well-planned town. Together with the town of Naharlagun, situated about 10 km away, Itanagar forms the State's administrative hub. Many of the buildings in Itanagar are new, light, wooden framed and earthquake-proof structures. Situated at an altitude of 750 m above sea level. Itanagar sports an equable climate with temperatures ranging from 27.50 C to 13.50 C. Itanagar is well connected by road with other parts of NE region.