GIS-based modeling of landslide susceptibility zonation by integrating the frequency ratio and objective–subjective weighting approach: a case study in a tropical monsoon climate region

Abstract

Accurate detection of landslide spatial patterns is vital in susceptibility, hazard, and risk disaster mapping. Geographic Information System (GIS)-based quantitative approaches provide a rigorous procedure for gaining deep insight into natural and anthropogenic landslides from different scales. This study aims to implement a comprehensive solution for retrieving the landslide susceptibility index. For that purpose, a landslide inventory was performed in a tropical monsoon climate region, with a magnitude of elevation spanning from −65 m to 1,900 m above the sea, considering 15 fundamental causative factors belonging to the groups of topography, hydrology, geology, land cover conditions and anthropogenic activities, and weather. The frequency ratio (FR) was implemented to rank subclasses in each causative factor. For factor weight estimation, different approaches were applied, including the subjective-based analytic hierarchy process (AHP), objective-based Shannon entropy (SE), and a synergy of both methods (AHP–SE), built on these two approaches. Out of the 271 identified landslide locations, 70% (196 points) were used for training and the remaining 30% (71 points) were applied for validation. The results showed that the integrated AHP–SE outperformed the two individual approaches, with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) reaching 0.876, following SE (AUC = 0.848) and AHP (AUC = 0.818). In the synergy approach, the climate pattern under tropical monsoons was confirmed as the most crucial landslide-predisposing factor. The research contributes to a novel discussion by integrating knowledge-based consultation and statistical data analysis of accurate geospatial data, incorporating significant explanatory factors toward a reliable landslide-prone zonation over space and time dimensions.