GIS-Based Landslide Susceptibility Mapping Using Information, Frequency Ratio, and Artificial Neural Network Methods in Qinghai Province, Northwestern China

Abstract

Landslides are one of the nature hazards causing a lot of casualties and property losses in the world. Over the last decades, many researchers have made contributions in landslide susceptibility maps using qualitative and quantitative methods. Parameters of DEM, geology, etc. are selected to analyze the mechanism of landslides. The quality of data is essential in the landslide studies, and more credible results can be obtained if the data is adequate and accurate from the wide range of parameters. The aim of this study is to evaluate the landslide susceptibility of Huangyuan County of Qinghai. Through field investigations, 100 landslide disaster locations in the study area were selected, and 11 influencing factors including elevation, slope, aspect, plane curvature, profile curvature, road distance, river distance, fault distance, stratum rock property, vegetation coverage index, and terrain humidity index were selected as the influencing factors of landslide disaster based on GIS. In this paper, the information method (IM) model, frequency ratio (FR) model, and artificial neural network (ANN) model are used to evaluate the susceptibility of geological hazards, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of disaster points at different levels is used to test the evaluation accuracy of three models. The results show that factors that have great influence on landslides are associated with witness, and the terrain humidity index has the highest weight in the occurrences of landslide. The values of AUC indicate that the ANN model is the best evaluation model suitable for the study area and can be extremely useful for landslide hazard mitigation strategies. Based on the calculation of ANN model, three valley areas are determined with high landslide susceptibility, and necessary reinforcement measures should be taken.