Evaluating landslide susceptibility: the impact of resolution and hybrid integration approaches

Abstract

The present study investigates the effectiveness of various landslide susceptibility machine learning (ML) models at multiple spatial resolutions. Using various conditioning factors, including topography, hydrology, and human influences, the study analyzed the predictive power of single, integrated, and comparative ML models. Alternating Decision Tree (ADT), Forest by Penalizing Attributes (FPA), and Random Forest (RAF), and integrated approaches such as Rotation Forest (RF) and Random Subspace (RS) that were based on ADT and FPA were utilized for the study. All models were trained and validated using a ten-fold cross-validation technique and evaluated by various statistical metrics, across resolutions from 12.5 m to 200 m. Shenmu City in China was chosen as an ideal test site to evaluate the developed methodology. The study reveals that finer spatial resolutions significantly enhance the accuracy of landslide predictions and that integrated models have superior performance over single models. The Frequency Ratio method identified elevation, slope, and hydrological factors as the key predictors concerning landslide occurrences. According to the results the RS-ADT model at a 12.5 m resolution achieved the highest evaluation accuracy (ROC = 0.907). The research highlights the possibility of combining multiple modeling techniques and high-resolution data to improve the predictive accuracy of landslide susceptibility models.

Keywords

• Multi-source heterogeneous spatial data
• grid units
• selection of conditioning factors
• integrated modeling comparison
• susceptibility evaluation system
• Shenmu City