Analysis and evaluation of landslide susceptibility: a review on articles published during 2005-2016 (periods of 2005-2012 and 2013-2016)

Landslides are one of the most important environmental hazards occur naturally or human-induced with large-scale social, economic, and environmental impacts. Landslide susceptibility zoning, which has been widely performed in the last decades, allows identifying spatial prediction of areas of landslides, which could be used for land use planning and land management. The present study was conducted as a review with the aim of investigating the research background of landslide susceptibility in the world during the period of 2005-2016. The results showed that the publication of papers related to landslide susceptibility during the period of investigation has been on the rise, and China has produced a larger number of papers and authors (13% of total). In addition, this article reviews the most popularly used models and the most frequently used input factors. Among different models, the logistic regression has been used as the most common method for assessing landslide susceptibility in 28.4% of the articles, and the slope gradient is considered as the most important conditioning factor in landslide occurrence in 94.2% of the articles. Finally, it is concluded that the recent technological developments in the field of remote sensing, computing technologies and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the increased data availability, and the awareness has arisen among media and recent policy developments are important elements for increasing the research interest in landslide susceptibility.