Development of two artificial neural network methods for landslide susceptibility analysis

The purpose of this study is to develop landslide susceptibility analysis techniques using artificial neural networks and to apply the newly developed techniques for assessment of landslide susceptibility to the study area of Yongin in Korea. Landslide locations were identified in the study area from interpretation of aerial photographs, field survey data, and a spatial database of the topography, soil type and timber cover were constructed. The landslide-related factors such as topographic slope, topographic curvature, soil texture, soil drainage, soil effective thickness, timber age, and timber diameter were extracted from the spatial database. Using those factors, landslide susceptibility and weights of each factor were analyzed by two artificial neural network methods. In the first method, the landslide susceptibility index was calculated by the back propagation method, which is a type of artificial neural network method. Then, the susceptibility map was made with a GIS program. The results of the landslide susceptibility analysis were verified using landslide location data. The verification results show satisfactory agreement between the susceptibility index and existing landslide location data. In the second method, weights of each factor were determinated. The weights, relative importance of each factor, were calculated using importance-free characteristics method of artificial neural networks. After the calculating of the weight, the slope had the highest value.