Landslide Hazard Zonation Using Quantitative Methods in GIS

Landslides are major natural hazards which not only result in the loss of human life but also cause economic burden on the society. Therefore, it is essential to develop suitable models to evaluate the susceptibility of slope failures and their zonations. This paper scientifically assesses various methods of landslide susceptibility zonation in GIS environment. A comparative study of Weights of Evidence (WOE), Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Generalized Linear Regression (GLR) procedures for landslide susceptibility zonation is presented. Controlling factors such as lithology, landuse, slope angle, slope aspect, curvature, distance to fault, and distance to drainage were considered as explanatory variables. Data of 151 sample points of observed landslides in Mazandaran Province, Iran, were used to train and test the approaches. Small scale maps (1:1,000.000) were used in this study. The estimated accuracy ranges from 80 to 88 percent. It is then inferred that the application of WOE in rating maps' categories and ANN to weight effective factors result in the maximum accuracy.