10th CIGRE Southern Africa

Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa

Using an Analytical Hierarchy Process to identify areas of Land Instability

within the Eskom Transmission Grid

T. MPHAPHULI1, K. LIEBENBERG1, L. MONAMA1, S. MUSHABE1

Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd1
South Africa1

SUMMARY

The electrical infrastructure of the South African power utility, Eskom, is its main asset
in ensuring that the utility delivers on its mandate to supply energy to the country. This
infrastructure, in particular the overhead transmission lines, crisscrosses over
thousands of kilometres of land. Some of this land is unstable. This instability can
eventually lead to the weakening and in some cases, eventual collapse of these
transmission lines resulting in an interrupted power supply to customers.

The term ‘Land Instability’ refers to unstable land surface behaviour. There are various
forces that cause land instability, such as the spontaneous combustion of coal seams,
presence of carbonate rocks (dolomite rock, limestone and gypsum) and dykes and
the structure of the soil. All of which can be exacerbated by human activities. Natural
processes such as soil erosion and land degradation are also major risks to the
electricity supply industry. South Africa is a country characterised with a sub-tropical
climate and land cover that is generally free of forests. This leads to above average
levels of soil erosion. Further to this, there is a high prevalence of carbonate rocks,
especially over the economic hub of South Africa, Gauteng, producing karst
topography and an increased risk of subsidence. These concerns all pose challenges
for the construction and maintenance of overhead transmission power lines over these
problematic areas. With this in mind, an investigation into the levels of land surface
vulnerability in South African associated with soil erosion and land degradation was
performed in order to identify transmission line towers that were at risk due to land
instability.

KEYWORDS

GIS, AHP, MCDA, Land instability, Risk, Carbonate rock, Transmission overhead lines,
Towers

MphaphTs@eskom.co.za , LiebenK@eskom.co.za, MonamaLD@eskom.co.za

 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
1 Introduction
The use of spatial data to inform decision making has grown over the years as new
algorithms are being discovered and computer processing power improving. The
wealth of data that is at the disposal of geospatial scientists has been used in the utility
industry to inform decisions regarding selecting the best site, route, design and
maintenance of infrastructure. This study will present how Geographic Information
Science (GISc) is used to model land surface that is prone to erosion and land
degradation. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) multi-criteria decision analysis
(MCDA) methodology, which is well-suited to being performed on a Geographic
Information System (GIS), is the primary methodology used for the analysis. The
methodology describes several datasets that can be used in detecting soil erosion
vulnerability. Coupled with this, subsidence in South Africa caused by karst topography
– chiefly underlying dolomite – has been cited in a variety of sources (Oosthuizen &
Richardson, 2011) as an issue that would need to be included in any geomorphological
study. As this was a high-level analysis that would be undertaken, it was decided that
the fuzzy approach described in (Haidara, et al., 2019) was not necessary for this
study. Rainfall, land cover, soils classification, topography, proximity to rivers and
streams and geology were used as the criteria for the analysis. The results obtained
from the study displayed the variation in erosion over South Africa, with an initial
observation being a higher risk in the eastern regions, specifically the Highveld region
as well as the mountainous and coastal regions of KwaZulu-Natal.

2 GIS-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis approach

The AHP was introduced by Saaty in 1980 and is widely used as a multi-criteria
decision analysis tool (Belkendil, et al., 2018). As the methodology involved in this
technique is straightforward to implement in a GIS, it was favoured over other multi-
criteria decision analysis methods.

2.1 Development of the pairwise comparison matrix

The first step involved in defining the hierarchies for the AHP was setting up a pairwise
comparison matrix. This is a process by which entities are compared in pairs in order
to evaluate which entity is preferred. The evaluation is done using values from 1 to 9,
as shown in Table 1, where a value of 1 means both entities have equal importance
and a value of 9 means the entity has extreme importance over the other (Saaty, 2008).
Equation 1 shows the pairwise comparison matrix between criterion 𝑖 and criterion 𝑗 by
an expert 𝑘:

1 𝑎12 𝑘 ⋯ 𝑎1𝑛 𝑘
𝑘
𝐴𝑘 = 𝑎𝑖𝑗 𝑘 = 𝑎21 1 ⋯ 𝑎2𝑛 𝑘
⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮
[𝑎𝑛1 𝑘 𝑎𝑛2 𝑘 ⋯ 1 ] (1)

It is significant to note that the importance of 𝑗 compared with 𝑖 is the inverse of 𝑎𝑖𝑗 .
Equation 2 illustrates this:

1
𝑎𝑖𝑗 𝑘 = 𝑖>𝑗
𝑎𝑖𝑗 𝑘 (2)

2
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
Table 1: Scale of comparison used in the pairwise comparison
Intensity of Importance Description
1 Equal importance
2 Equal to moderate importance
3 Moderate importance
4 Moderate to strong importance
5 Strong importance
6 Strong to very strong importance
7 Very strong importance
8 Very to extremely strong importance
9 Extreme importance

In both equation 1 and 2, 𝑛 are the number of criteria and 𝑎𝑖𝑗 𝑘 is a digit from 1 to 9
which is the opinion of the expert 𝑘 on the important of criterion 𝑖 over criterion 𝑗
(Haidara, et al., 2019). For a pairwise comparison to be more effective, multiple expert
opinions should be obtained and aggregated. However, for this analysis, only one
expert opinion was obtained.

2.2 Calculating the corresponding criteria weights

Once the pairwise comparison matrix was set up, the priority vector 𝑤 is then
calculated for the comparison matrix using equation 3, where 𝑤𝑖 is the relative weight
of each criterion 𝑖 (Alonso & Lamata, 2006). The inner equation is evaluated by dividing
each element in the matrix by the sum of its corresponding column. Evaluating the
outer equation then calculates the average of the normalised relative weights per
criterion to get the overall priority vector.
𝑛
1 𝑎𝑖𝑗
𝑤𝑖 = ∑ 𝑛
𝑛 ∑𝑖=1 𝑎𝑖𝑗
𝑗=1 (3)

2.3 Calculating the Consistency Ratio (CR)

After obtaining the priority vector, is it important to calculate the consistency ratio (CR)
of the comparison matrix. This helps to determine if comparisons were consistent
across the matrix (Alonso & Lamata, 2006). Initially, we calculate the consistency index
(CI) using equation 4, where 𝜆𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the principle eigenvalue and 𝑛 is the number of
criteria in the comparison matrix. The principle eigenvalue (𝜆𝑚𝑎𝑥 ) is calculated using
equation 5, the summation of the products between the sum of each column in the
comparison matrix and the priority vector in equation 3. Finally, we can calculate CR
in equation 6 by dividing CI by the Random Consistency Index (RI), which is a constant
for 𝑛 criteria in the matrix (Alonso & Lamata, 2006). If the value of the consistency ratio
is < 0.1, the inconsistency is acceptable (Alonso & Lamata, 2006).

𝜆𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝑛
𝐶𝐼 = (4)
𝑛−1
𝑛
𝑛
𝜆𝑚𝑎𝑥 = ∑ (∑ 𝑎𝑖𝑗 ) 𝑤𝑖
𝑖=1
𝑖=𝑗=1 (5)

3
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
𝐶𝐼
𝐶𝑅 = (6)
𝑅𝐼
2.4 Data preparation
The Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method was used after the weightings were
calculated from the pairwise comparison matrix. Before this method can be utilised,
the ranking of classes within the datasets must be performed according to the
estimated influence on soil erosion (Saini, et al., 2015). Each sub-class was ranked 1-
6 in order of impact based on the literature review, where a ranking of 6 indicates high
sensitivity to soil erosion and 1 indicates low sensitivity.

Each dataset was then processed in a GIS with the respective rankings per dataset
reflecting. Finally, a WLC was performed with the weightings assigned to each dataset.

3 Methodology
3.1 Study area
The study area for this analysis is South Africa. South Africa’s topography is
characterised by a high plateau surrounded by an escarpment, with scattered
mountain ranges within the plateau, and coastal plains descending from the
escarpment to the ocean, interrupted in the south west of the country by the Cape Fold
Mountains. The topography of the Highveld region of the country, which is located
within the central plateau, can be karst in areas, influenced by the presence of
carbonate rocks, which can lead to subsistence in areas. Rainfall is greatest over the
eastern part of South Africa, as well as isolated pockets along the southern coast, and
gradually decreases moving westwards over the country.

Figure 1: Digital Elevation Model of South Africa

4
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
3.2 Datasets
3.2.1 Rainfall
The Mean Annual Precipitation dataset was obtained from the South African Spatial
Data Infrastructure (SASDI). Rainfall intensity is the usual rainfall parameter used in
analyses of erosivity (Belkendil, et al., 2018). However, due to this dataset not being
readily available for South Africa, the mean annual precipitation for the country was
utilised as a compromise, similarly as in (Haidara, et al., 2019). As rainfall is considered
one of the main drivers of soil erosion, and the higher the rainfall, the greater the
chance of erosion, areas which receive above average rainfall obtained a higher
ranking compared to those which receive below average (Saini, et al., 2015).

3.2.2 Land cover

The SA National Land Cover Map (2020) was generated from USGS (United States
Geological Survey) Landsat imagery and has 73 land-use classes. The standard land
cover parameter used in the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation is derived land
surface cover from performing a Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
(Tadesse, et al., 2017). Due to the availability of the recent Land Cover map, which
already finely classifies vegetation cover as well as land cover, this was used instead
of performing a vegetation analysis. Areas with less vegetation cover have an
increased chance of erosion which lead to areas used for agricultural activities having
a higher ranking compared to forests (Saini, et al., 2015).

3.2.3 Soils classification

The soils classification used was the Soil Structure and Texture dataset from the
Agricultural Research Council (ARC) for soils in South Africa. The dataset describes
the soil structure as well as its clay content. Clay content was used as an indicator of
the infiltration/retaining characteristics of the soil (Saini, et al., 2015). Unstructured soil
has no observable aggregation and either have limited ability to transmit water readily
(such as massive structureless soils) or permit rapid water flow (such as pure sand),
with both allowing little water retention (Lowery, 2006). Structured soils, on the other
hand, have distinct peds (combinations of soil particles) and readily allow water flow
and water retention (Lowery, 2006). Therefore unstructured soils with low clay content
were ranked high compared to structured soils with a high clay content.

3.2.4 Topography
Due to lack of country wide high resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM), the 30m
SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) DEM was used to model the topography.
The steepness of a slope is proportional to the risk of soil erosion (Haidara, et al.,
2019).

3.2.5 Proximity to rivers/streams

To determine the proximity of infrastructure from a river is critical as those closer to a
stream will naturally drain into that stream faster. Therefore, proximity to rivers was
added as a parameter in the AHP. South Africa has a rich country wide river dataset
with perennial and non-perennial classification within it. A streams dataset was also
modelled from the DEM, described in the Topography section. Areas closest to rivers

5
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
obtained the highest ranking, while areas furthest from rivers and streams obtained the
lowest rank. Wetlands were not considered in this study but they can be included in
future whereby the wetland area is assigned the highest ranking.

Figure 2: Criterion Maps and their rankings

3.2.6 Geology
While it was important to include these geology types in the analysis as they pose a
known risk to transmission power lines from anecdotal evidence, it was decided to
separate the geological datasets from the initial pairwise comparison matrix. This was
due to the fact that all the datasets mentioned for this analysis are continuous across

6
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
the study area except for the geological datasets. Only coal seams and carbonate rock
types (i.e. dolomite, limestone and gypsum) were being used, which are disjoint across
South Africa. Therefore, the geological datasets were ranked on their own – where
minor instances of geology type in question were given a lower ranking – and used in
conjunction with the final WLC dataset.

Due to the number of geology classes that are present within the Council for
Geoscience (CGS) geology polygon dataset, only the sedimentary rock types that are
a cause of karst topography were included in the analysis, namely dolomite, limestone
and gypsum. Another geological factor creating surface subsistence is the presence
of underground coal fires. These occur when there are coal seams present in the
underlying geology ignite, either by human or natural causes, leading to subsistence.
Both these geology classes were then ranked, where minor instances were given a
lower ranking.

Figure 3: Geology criterion maps and their rankings

3.3 Development of the pairwise comparison matrix

The pairwise comparison matrix was developed using the six criteria discussed in the
last section and is shown in table 2.

Table 2: Pairwise Comparison matrix

River Stream
Criteria Rainfall Land cover Soil Slope distance distance
Rainfall 1.00 4.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00
Land cover 0.25 1.00 0.25 2.00 2.00 4.00
Soil 0.50 4.00 1.00 4.00 3.00 4.00
Slope 0.33 0.50 0.25 1.00 2.00 3.00
River distance 0.25 0.50 0.33 0.50 1.00 4.00
Stream distance 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.25 1.00
Total 2.53 10.25 4.08 10.83 12.25 21.00

7
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
3.4 Calculating the corresponding criteria weights
Using equation 3, the comparison matrix is normalised and then the priority vector is
calculated as well as the final weights to be used in the WLC.

Table 3: Normalised pairwise comparison

Land River Stream Row Priority Weights

Criteria Rainfall cover Soil Slope distance distance totals vector (%)
Rainfall 0.39 0.39 0.49 0.28 0.33 0.24 2.12 0.35 35.27
Land cover 0.10 0.10 0.06 0.18 0.16 0.19 0.80 0.13 13.26
Soil 0.20 0.39 0.24 0.37 0.24 0.19 1.64 0.27 27.29
Slope 0.13 0.05 0.06 0.09 0.16 0.14 0.64 0.11 10.67
River distance 0.10 0.05 0.08 0.05 0.08 0.19 0.55 0.09 9.12
Stream distance 0.08 0.02 0.06 0.03 0.02 0.05 0.26 0.04 4.39
Total 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 6.00 1.00 100.00

3.5 Calculating the Consistency Ratio (CR)

The consistency ratio was then calculated in order to assess whether the pairwise
comparison matrix had an accepted amount of inconsistency. The table below (Table
4) shows the RI values in order to calculate CR. Equation 9 shows the CR is 0.0901
which is less than 0.1, therefore there is a high level of consistency in the pairwise
comparison matrix and the weights calculated are acceptable.

0.35
0.13
𝜆𝑚𝑎𝑥 = ( 2.53 10.25 4.08 10.83 12.25 21.00 ) ∙ 0.27 = 6.5621
0.11
0.09
( 0.04 ) (7)
6.5621 − 6
𝐶𝐼 = = 0.1124 (8)
6−1

Table 4: Alonso-Lamata RI values (for 100000 matrices) (Alonso & Lamata, 2006)
n 3 4 5 6 7 8
RI 0.5245 0.8815 1.1086 1.2479 1.3417 1.4056

0.1124
𝐶𝑅 = = 0.0901 < 0.1 (9)
1.2479

4 Results and Discussion

The values obtained from the analysis ranged from 99 to 768, where the higher the
value, the higher the sensitivity to erosion. These values are inherently arbitrary as
they are products of the analysis from the GIS and therefore these values were
reclassified using standard deviations into six classes in order to easily interpret them
(shown in Table 5). Figure 4 indicates the WLC map that was performed, which shows
areas of high sensitivity to erosion are concentrated on the eastern portion of South

8
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
Africa, specifically Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, as well as northern Eastern Cape
and along the escarpment in Limpopo. This is primarily due to the above average
rainfall experienced in this region and the hilly terrain that characterises the areas
between the escarpment and coast. The soil type also increases erosion vulnerability
in regions such as the Makhathini flats in the north of KwaZulu-Natal and the capes
along the southern coast of South Africa which are all areas of sandy soil.
Table 5: Classes of soil erosion sensitivity
Ranking Erosion class Area (km2) Area (%)
1 Slight erosion 10 972.67 0.91
2 Low erosion 65 326.17 5.39
3 Moderate erosion 284 286.80 23.47
4 High erosion 485 843.81 40.12
5 Very high erosion 284 787.13 23.51
6 Severe erosion 79 892.92 6.60

Figure 4: Soil Erosion Sensitivity Map

While the incorporation of areas with karst topography wasn’t fully realised, these
areas need to be included to understand the levels of future possible subsistence as
per CGS and SANS dolomitic land development guidelines. The Highveld region is
quite complex as it is composed by both coal seams and dolomitic areas, which both
have potential to cause sudden ground collapse. This highlights an area requiring
further study which is the better integration of the soil erosion vulnerability components
with the geological components. While both these components are vital in

9
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
understanding overall land instability, their individual criterions can be incompatible
and they need be combined with a more refined method.

It should be noted that the model is the outcome of current dataset, it can be improved
as more or high quality dataset is acquired. The identified high risk areas are
contributed by changes on land surface geophysical processes, human activities, and
their complex interactions and it can be mitigated as well by applying relevant
environmental and engineering solutions.

4.1 Validation of results

In order to validate the efficacy of this study, the locations of towers within the
Transmission Grid that were undergoing soil erosion mitigation plans were obtained.
Figure 5 shows these towers along with the ranking from the soil erosion vulnerability
map in Figure 4. As this figure shows, all towers were located on erosion classes 4, 5
and 6, which corresponds with a high vulnerability to soil erosion and above. This is a
good indication of the value of the study described in this paper.

Figure 5: Towers currently undergoing soil erosion mitigation and their soil erosion class

5 Conclusion
Based on the results presented above, GISc technology can be a useful tool in
identifying areas that are vulnerable to land degradation and pose a risk of overhead
power lines collapsing. The methods illustrated in this study, using AHP and WLC in a
GIS framework, are an effective approach in analysing the sensitivities associated with
soil erosion. In particular, transmission towers that are located on the upper 6% of the

10
 10th CIGRE Southern Africa
Regional Conference
2nd – 4th November 2021
Johannesburg, South Africa
study area, labelled as severe soil erosion, should warrant further investigation
surrounding the mitigation of the effects of soil erosion.

In geological and soil studies, land degradation is caused by series of natural events
such as heavy rains and socio-economic activities such as land cover and land use on
a certain type of soil or rock. The effect of climate change in this regard is undeniable
and will continue to challenge the strength of our infrastructure and relevant technology
applications.

These activities expose transmission infrastructure to high risk of failure, exposing the
security of power supply to customers. Interrupted power supply has a negative impact
on the company’s organisational image and the country’s economy and by identifying
areas of potential vulnerability, one can enable proactive measures to be taken to
reduce a tower collapse incident.

This study demonstrates the effectiveness of remote sensing and GIS in modelling
crucial quantitative information to identify possible areas that are highly likely to
experience land instability phenomenon. The end-product represents a valuable
resource for decision makers to guard against land acquisition in areas considered as
prone to land degradation and to develop a mitigation strategy on areas where there
is already infrastructure. It can be concluded that the effects of land instability on
electrical infrastructure in certain areas can be mitigated before the situation escalates
to a potentially hazardous situations.

6 Bibliography
[1] Alonso, J. A. & Lamata, M. T., 2006. Consistency in the Analytical Hierachy
Process: A new approach. International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and
Knowledge-Based Systems, 14(4), pp. 445-459.
[2] Belkendil, A. et al., 2018. Using Multi–Criteria Evaluation (MCE): Analytical
Hierarchy Process (AHP) In Investigation of Erosion Phenomenon in Arid Zones
(Case Study: Watershed of Bechar, Southwest of Algeria). Cinq Continents,
Volume 8, pp. 99-117.
[3] Haidara, I., Tahri, M., Maanan, M. & Hakdaoui, M., 2019. Efficiency of Fuzzy
Analytic Hierarchy Process to detect soil erosion. Geoderma, Volume 354, p.
Article 113853.
[4] Lowery, B., 2006. Soil Structure: Friend or Foe?. Madison, WI, 2006 Wisconsin
Fertilizer, Aglime and Pest Management Conference.
[5] Oosthuizen, A. C. & Richardson, S., 2011. Sinkholes and subsidence in South
Africa, Bellville: Council for Geoscience.
[6] Saaty, T. L., 2008. Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process.
International Journal of Services Sciences (IJSSCI), 1(1), pp. 83-98.
[7] Saini, S., Jangra, R. & Kaushik, S. P., 2015. Vulnearbility assessment of soil
erosion using geospatial techniques - A pilot study of upper catchment of
Markanda river. International Journal of Advancement in Remote Sensing, GIS
and Geography, 3(1), pp. 9-21.
[8] Tadesse, L., Suryabhagavan, K., Sridhar, G. & Legesse, G., 2017. Land use and
land cover changes and Soil erosion in Yezat Watershed, North Western Ethiopia.
International Soil and Water Conservation Research, 5(2), pp. 85-94.

11