SOCIO-ECONOMIC EVALUATION
T he pressure of population and the impact of developmental programmes force man into relatively virgin environments. Such invasion involves tampering with landscape and disturbing the habitats of the flora and fauna. It is recognised that unscientific developmental activities has resulted in severe environmental degradation and a steadily declining quality of life for many people. The people not only accelerate many natural processes but also may introduce new hazards to an otherwise stable area. This is one of the aspects to be evaluated from the socio-economic point of view i.e., how far the socio-economic situation of the region contributed to over exploitation of resources, understanding of how far the development activities and traditional landuse practices aggravated the vulnerably so that suitable corrective measures could be introduced to minimise the impact.
Landslides and socio-economic development
Landslides have crippling effect on the economy of the region by damaging infrastructure, crops and productive assets of population besides, imposing huge burden on relief and rescue operations. Usually the weaker section or people at higher poverty level are affected most as they are economically ill equipped in terms of resources to cope up with the disruption of life due to this natural hazard.
Society and disaster management
The disaster management involves mitigatory measures and such measures adopted will be successful only when they are socially acceptable. In order to reach this goal, participation of the community in all stages of evolution of such programmes is cardinal. Creation of an awareness among the local community on environmental preservation, an initial part of disaster reduction, can go a long way to ensure active people's participation in such programmes
Some obervations in the study area

The data reveal that 62.5% families in the Minachil basin and 48.53% families in the Manimala basin are affected in one way or the other by adverse effects of landslides.

55.59% familiesfrom Minachil and 80.30% from Manimala basin stated that they are living in the landslide prone area

50% families depend solely on the primary sector.

The literacy level is high

Only about 34% of the total land is possessed by the settlers residing in  the area.This land distribution emphasises the need for more involvement of large scale estate owners who are living outside the area and government in order to execute meaningful mitigatory measures.

Survey reveals that most of the settlers are willing to change their dwelling places to safe areas but want to continue their agricultural activities in the land owned by them which they do not wish to part with.

More than 90% of the settlers possess less than 5 acres of land with 65% holding less than 2 acres.