Landslide Susceptibility Prediction Based on a CNN–LSTM–SAM–Attention Hybrid Model

Abstract

Accurate prediction of landslide susceptibility is a key component of disaster risk reduction and early warning systems. Traditional landslide susceptibility prediction methods often face challenges in capturing complex nonlinear and spatio-temporal relationships inherent in geospatial data. In this study, we propose a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Spatial Attention Mechanism (SAM) hybrid deep learning model designed for spatial landslide susceptibility prediction. The model is trained on a comprehensive dataset comprising 19,898 samples, constructed from landslide records and 16 influencing factors in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. The input dataset is processed in tabular format using Microsoft Excel and includes variables such as topography, meteorology, soil characteristics, and human activity. The proposed model leverages Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to extract spatial features, Long Short-Term Memory networks (LSTM) to model temporal dependencies, and a Spatial Attention Mechanism (SAM) to enhance feature weighting dynamically. Experimental results demonstrate that the CNN–LSTM–SAM–Attention model significantly outperforms traditional machine learning approaches in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, ROC–AUC, and PR–AUC. This substantial improvement is attributed to the model’s enhanced capability in capturing complex spatio-temporal patterns and dynamically weighting critical spatial features through the integrated Spatial Attention Mechanism (SAM). This study highlights the potential of deep learning-based approaches for improving the reliability of spatial landslide susceptibility prediction in complex terrain and dynamic climatic conditions.