An Earthquake Fatalities Assessment Method Based on Feature Importance with Deep Learning and Random Forest Models

Hanxi Jia,Junqi Lin,Jinlong Liu

doi:10.3390/su11102727

Abstract

This study aims to analyze and compare the importance of feature affecting earthquake fatalities in China mainland and establish a deep learning model to assess the potential fatalities based on the selected factors. The random forest (RF) model, classification and regression tree (CART) model, and AdaBoost model were used to assess the importance of nine features and the analysis showed that the RF model was better than the other models. Furthermore, we compared the contributions of 43 different structure types to casualties based on the RF model. Finally, we proposed a model for estimating earthquake fatalities based on the seismic data from 1992 to 2017 in China mainland. These results indicate that the deep learning model produced in this study has good performance for predicting seismic fatalities. The method could be helpful to reduce casualties during emergencies and future building construction.

Highlights

Earthquakes impose a large number of threats to the Chinese (Table 1)
The results demonstrate as follows: (1) adaptive moment estimation (Adam) algorithm and moving average model based on deep learning can accelerate the convergence speed and improve the accuracy of model prediction
The second issue was addressed by random forest (RF) algorithm to assess the importance of 43 structure types

Summary

Introduction

Earthquakes impose a large number of threats to the Chinese (Table 1). If there is a proper rapid estimation of the number of casualties in an earthquake, the impact and losses of the disaster could be decreased [1]. The government will need 10–50 emergency personnel and 200–300 tents; (2) When the magnitude is greater than or equal to 6 and less than 6.5, and the predicted number of deaths is 0–10. (3) When the magnitude is greater than or equal to 6.5 and less than 7, and the predicted death toll is 0–10, 200–500 emergency personnel and 3000–5000 tents will be needed. (4) When the magnitude is more than 7 and the death toll is less than 10, 500–1000 emergency personnel and 5000–10000 tents will be required. When the death toll is 100–1000, 5000–10000 emergency personnel and more than 20,000 tents will be needed and (5) when the number of deaths is greater than 1000, it is necessary to draw the necessary emergency personnel and material distribution according to the specific economic and political conditions in the local area

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion