Abstract
ABSTRACTA regional scale basin susceptible to landslide located in Qaemshahr area in northern Iran was chosen for comparing the reliability of weight of evidence (WofE), fuzzy logic, and frequency ratio (FR) methods for landslide susceptibility mapping. The locations of 157 landslides were identified using Google Earth® or extracted from archived data, from which, 22 rockslides were eliminated from the data-set due to their different conditions. The 135 remaining landslides were randomly divided into two groups of modelling (70%) and validation (30%) data-sets. Elevation, slope degree, slope aspect, lithology, land use/cover, normalized difference vegetation index, rainfall, distance to drainage network, roads, and faults were considered as landslide causative factors. The landslide susceptibility maps were prepared using the three mentioned methods. The validation process was measured by the success and prediction rates calculated by area under receiver operating characteristic curve. The ‘OR’, ‘AND’, ‘SUM’, and ‘PRODUCT’ operators of the fuzzy logic method were unacceptable because these operators classify the target area into either very high or very low susceptible zones that are inconsistent with the physical conditions of the study area. The results of fuzzy ‘GAMMA’ operators were relatively reliable while, FR and WofE methods showed results that are more reliable.
Highlights
Natural hazards cause significant casualties and destruction in today’s world
A regional scale basin susceptible to landslide located in Qaemshahr area in northern Iran was chosen for comparing the reliability of weight of evidence (WofE), fuzzy logic, and frequency ratio (FR) methods for landslide susceptibility mapping
The causative factors were classified into several classes and weights were assigned to them for FR, fuzzy logic, and WofE methods as are presented in columns 7, 8, and 15 in table 1
Summary
Natural hazards cause significant casualties and destruction in today’s world. The unplanned urbanization especially in developing countries and wide climate changes through global warming increase the risk of natural hazards. The Alborz mountain belt in the north of Iran, due to its climate, geology, and high tectonic activities, is a prone area to landslides that cause the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars annually (Pourghasemi et al 2013). In this regard, a necessary step for effective land-use management and slope stability is mapping the landslide-prone areas (Akgun 2012). A necessary step for effective land-use management and slope stability is mapping the landslide-prone areas (Akgun 2012) These maps classify the land surface to different zones according to the degree of actual or potential landslide hazard (Rozos et al 2011). Several qualitative or quantitative methods have been used to analyze the relationship between landslides and causative factors (Aleotti & Chowdhury 1999; Ayalew & Yamagishi 2005)
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