Spatial mapping of landslide susceptibility in Jerash governorate of Jordan using genetic algorithm-based wrapper feature selection and bagging-based ensemble model

Abstract

This study employs five genetic algorithm (GA)-based machine learning (ML) models, namely the Decision Tree (DT), k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN), NaïveBayes (NB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), to build a novel ensemble algorithm that is founded on the Bagging method for landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) in Jerash Governorate, north of Jordan. The GA-based wrapper feature selection (FS) was done based on the five individual models and in the initial stages of modeling, an inquiry for the best feature for each of the five models was made. Finally, five hybrid models, namely DT-GA, kNN-GA, NB-GA, SVM-GA, and ELM-GA were constructed and combined to create Bagging-based ensemble model. The FS outcomes uncovered that rainfall depth, distance to roads, the Stream Power Index, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, slope, geology, and aspect are the most influential determinants of landslides. After the significant variables were identified, they were selected as input predictors and entered into the models. GA-based Bagging ensemble model with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.85 achieved the highest accuracy in the validation run, followed by SVM-GA (AUROC = 0.80), NB-GA (AUROC = 0.76), DT-GA (AUROC = 0.72), kNN-GA (AUROC = 0.70), and ELM-GA (AUROC = 0.48).

Keywords

• Ensemble models
• hazard mapping
• landslide susceptibility mapping
• machine learning