CLUSTERING ANALYSIS OF DEBRIS-FLOW STREAMS

The Chi-Chi earthquake in 1999 caused disastrous landslides, which triggered numerous debris flows and killed hundreds of people. A critical rainfall intensity line for each debris-flow stream is studied to prevent such a disaster. However, setting rainfall lines from incomplete data is difficult, so this study considered eight critical factors to group streams, such that streams within a cluster have similar rainfall lines. A genetic algorithm is applied to group 377 debris-flow streams selected from the center of an area affected by the Chi-Chi earthquake. These streams are grouped into seven clusters with different characteristics. The results reveal that the proposed method effectively groups debris-flow streams.