Using Fuzzy Neural Networks to Model Landslide Susceptibility at the Shihmen Reservoir Catchment in Taiwan

Abstract

Machine learning algorithms are commonly employed in landslide susceptibility assessments. Recently, algorithms that utilize artificial intelligence have come into prominence. This study attempts to adapt the most fundamental framework of deep learning and introduces fuzzy theory concepts to analyze landslide susceptibility while updating the network parameters with trial-and-error methods. The final analysis results will compare with those of logistic regression (LR). In order to assess the ability of the model to identify landslides in a more objective way, two typhoon events were used as a training event and a validation event, respectively. The results of the analysis show that the area under the curve (AUC) of the fuzzy neural network (FNN) for the training event is 0.915, but the AUC for the validation event drops to 0.746. Although the results of the FNN for training events were better than those of LR, they did not differ much from those of LR in predicting future events. The reason for this is that the difference between the landslide distributions of the training and validation events is too large, making the model biased in its identification. Overall, FNN is still a recommended method for analyzing landslide potential and can be used as a reference for LR.