Landslides Susceptibility Assessment Based on GIS Statistical Bivariate Analysis in the Hills Surrounding a Metropolitan Area

Abstract

In the highly populated analysed territory, the expansion of the construction zones and the pressure imposed on the slopes by the housing and transport infrastructure led to the appearance and reactivation of mass movement processes that affects the population and the environment. The purpose of this study consist in applying the principles of bivariate statistical analysis in order to determine the dynamic potential of a territory, taking into account the statistical relationship between the independent variables represented by predisposing and triggering factors of landslides (slope, geology, land use etc.) and dependent variables, in this case: landslides. The identification of the degree of validation of the results was determined by calculating the AUROC (Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic) value, whose value of 0.854 highlights the representativeness of the chosen model. The analysis of landslides susceptibility highlights the inclusion of the territory represented by the hills surrounding Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area, Romania, on the classes of spatial occurrence of these processes.