Abstract
GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods are increasingly being used in landslide susceptibility mapping. However, the uncertainties that are associated with MCDA techniques may significantly impact the results. This may sometimes lead to inaccurate outcomes and undesirable consequences. This article introduces a new GIS-based MCDA approach. We illustrate the consequences of applying different MCDA methods within a decision-making process through uncertainty analysis. Three GIS-MCDA methods in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and Dempster–Shafer theory are analyzed for landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) in the Urmia lake basin in Iran, which is highly susceptible to landslide hazards. The methodology comprises three stages. First, the LSM criteria are ranked and a sensitivity analysis is implemented to simulate error propagation based on the MCS. The resulting weights are expressed through probability density functions. Accordingly, within the second stage, three MCDA methods, namely analytical hierarchy process (AHP), weighted linear combination (WLC) and ordered weighted average (OWA), are used to produce the landslide susceptibility maps. In the third stage, accuracy assessments are carried out and the uncertainties of the different results are measured. We compare the accuracies of the three MCDA methods based on (1) the Dempster–Shafer theory and (2) a validation of the results using an inventory of known landslides and their respective coverage based on object-based image analysis of IRS-ID satellite images. The results of this study reveal that through the integration of GIS and MCDA models, it is possible to identify strategies for choosing an appropriate method for LSM. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the integration of MCDA and MCS can significantly improve the accuracy of the results. In LSM, the AHP method performed best, while the OWA reveals better performance in the reliability assessment. The WLC operation yielded poor results.
Highlights
Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is one of the most fundamental decision support operations in GIS (Jiang and Eastman 2000)
Three landslide susceptibility maps were derived based on three different GIS-multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods, namely, weighted linear combination (WLC), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and ordered weighted average (OWA)
We carried out a GIS-MCDA uncertainty analysis and demonstrated a solution for the uncertainty modeling by introducing a new approach for GIS-MCDA
Summary
Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is one of the most fundamental decision support operations in GIS (Jiang and Eastman 2000). Malczewski (2006) noted that many real-world decisions are uncertain because they involve some aspects with unknown uncertainties in decision-making (Comber et al 2010). Even small changes in decision weights and methods may have a significant impact on the rank ordering of the criteria and the results of the GIS-MCDA, which sometimes leads to inaccurate outcomes and undesirable consequences (Feizizadeh and Blaschke 2013a). To reduce the chance of error in GIS-MCDA methods, uncertainty analysis is a process that leads to the assessment of the reliability of MCDA’s results in both quantitative and qualitative approaches. We aim to contribute to a better understanding of the uncertainties inherent to GIS-MCDA methods and to increase the stability of their outputs by illustrating the impact of small changes to specific input parameters on evaluation outcomes
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