Multi-Hazard Exposure Mapping Using Machine Learning for the State of Salzburg, Austria

We live in a sphere that has unpredictable and multifaceted landscapes that make the risk arising from several incidences that are omnipresent. Floods and landslides are widespread and recurring hazards occurring at an alarming rate in recent years. The importance of this study is to produce multi-hazard exposure maps for flooding and landslides for the federal State of Salzburg, Austria, using the selected machine learning (ML) approach of support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF). Multi-hazard exposure maps were established on thirteen influencing factors for flood and landslides such as elevation, slope, aspect, topographic wetness index (TWI), stream power index (SPI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), geology, lithology, rainfall, land cover, distance to roads, distance to faults, and distance to drainage. We classified the inventory data for flood and landslide into training and validation with the widely used splitting ratio, where 70% of the locations are used for training, and 30% are used for validation. The accuracy assessment of the exposure maps was derived through ROC (receiver operating curve) and R-Index (relative density). RF yielded better results for both flood and landslide exposure with 0.87 for flood and 0.90 for landslides compared to 0.87 for flood and 0.89 for landslides using SVM. However, the multi-hazard exposure map for the State of Salzburg derived through RF and SVM provides the planners and managers to plan better for risk regions affected by both floods and landslides.

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A Semi-Automated Object-Based Gully Networks Detection Using Different Machine Learning Models: A Case Study of Bowen Catchment, Queensland, Australia

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s19224893 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (22) ◽

pp. 4893 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Hejar Shahabi ◽

Ben Jarihani ◽

Sepideh Tavakkoli Piralilou ◽

David Chittleborough ◽

Mohammadtaghi Avand ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Image Segmentation ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Scale Parameter ◽

Slope Aspect ◽

Support Vector ◽

Topographic Wetness Index ◽

Slope Length ◽

Optimal Scale ◽

Object Based

Gully erosion is a dominant source of sediment and particulates to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage area. We selected the Bowen catchment, a tributary of the Burdekin Basin, as our area of study; the region is associated with a high density of gully networks. We aimed to use a semi-automated object-based gully networks detection process using a combination of multi-source and multi-scale remote sensing and ground-based data. An advanced approach was employed by integrating geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) with current machine learning (ML) models. These included artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machines (SVM), and random forests (RF), and an ensemble ML model of stacking to deal with the spatial scaling problem in gully networks detection. Spectral indices such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and topographic conditioning factors, such as elevation, slope, aspect, topographic wetness index (TWI), slope length (SL), and curvature, were generated from Sentinel 2A images and the ALOS 12-m digital elevation model (DEM), respectively. For image segmentation, the ESP2 tool was used to obtain three optimal scale factors. On using object pureness index (OPI), object matching index (OMI), and object fitness index (OFI), the accuracy of each scale in image segmentation was evaluated. The scale parameter of 45 with OFI of 0.94, which is a combination of OPI and OMI indices, proved to be the optimal scale parameter for image segmentation. Furthermore, segmented objects based on scale 45 were overlaid with 70% and 30% of a prepared gully inventory map to select the ML models’ training and testing objects, respectively. The quantitative accuracy assessment methods of Precision, Recall, and an F1 measure were used to evaluate the model’s performance. Integration of GEOBIA with the stacking model using a scale of 45 resulted in the highest accuracy in detection of gully networks with an F1 measure value of 0.89. Here, we conclude that the adoption of optimal scale object definition in the GEOBIA and application of the ensemble stacking of ML models resulted in higher accuracy in the detection of gully networks.

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Combining Evolutionary Algorithms and Machine Learning Models in Landslide Susceptibility Assessments

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12233854 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (23) ◽

pp. 3854 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Wei Chen ◽

Yunzhi Chen ◽

Paraskevas Tsangaratos ◽

Ioanna Ilia ◽

Xiaojing Wang

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Feature Selection ◽

Evolutionary Algorithms ◽

Landslide Susceptibility ◽

Structural Parameters ◽

Slope Angle ◽

Slope Aspect ◽

Support Vector ◽

Ann Model ◽

Topographic Wetness Index

The main objective of the present study is to introduce a novel predictive model that combines evolutionary algorithms and machine learning (ML) models, so as to construct a landslide susceptibility map. Genetic algorithms (GA) are used as a feature selection method, whereas the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method is used to optimize the structural parameters of two ML models, support vector machines (SVM) and artificial neural network (ANN). A well-defined spatial database, which included 335 landslides and twelve landslide-related variables (elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, curvature, plan curvature, profile curvature, topographic wetness index, stream power index, distance to faults, distance to river, lithology, and hydrological cover) are considered for the analysis, in the Achaia Regional Unit located in Northern Peloponnese, Greece. The outcome of the study illustrates that both ML models have an excellent performance, with the SVM model achieving the highest learning accuracy (0.977 area under the receiver operating characteristic curve value (AUC)), followed by the ANN model (0.969). However, the ANN model shows the highest prediction accuracy (0.800 AUC), followed by the SVM (0.750 AUC) model. Overall, the proposed ML models highlights the necessity of feature selection and tuning procedures via evolutionary optimization algorithms and that such approaches could be successfully used for landslide susceptibility mapping as an alternative investigation tool.

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Performance Evaluation and Comparison of Bivariate Statistical-Based Artificial Intelligence Algorithms for Spatial Prediction of Landslides

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi9120696 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (12) ◽

pp. 696

Author(s):

Wei Chen ◽

Zenghui Sun ◽

Xia Zhao ◽

Xinxiang Lei ◽

Ataollah Shirzadi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Landslide Susceptibility ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Slope Angle ◽

Spatial Prediction ◽

Slope Aspect ◽

Support Vector ◽

Topographic Wetness Index ◽

Bivariate Model ◽

Susceptibility Maps ◽

Landslide Susceptibility Maps

The purpose of this study is to compare nine models, composed of certainty factors (CFs), weights of evidence (WoE), evidential belief function (EBF) and two machine learning models, namely random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). In the first step, fifteen landslide conditioning factors were selected to prepare thematic maps, including slope aspect, slope angle, elevation, stream power index (SPI), sediment transport index (STI), topographic wetness index (TWI), plan curvature, profile curvature, land use, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil, lithology, rainfall, distance to rivers and distance to roads. In the second step, 152 landslides were randomly divided into two groups at a ratio of 70/30 as the training and validation datasets. In the third step, the weights of the CF, WoE and EBF models for conditioning factor were calculated separately, and the weights were used to generate the landslide susceptibility maps. The weights of each bivariate model were substituted into the RF and SVM models, respectively, and six integrated models and landslide susceptibility maps were obtained. In the fourth step, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and related parameters were used for verification and comparison, and then the success rate curve and the prediction rate curves were used for re-analysis. The comprehensive results showed that the hybrid model is superior to the bivariate model, and all nine models have excellent performance. The WoE–RF model has the highest predictive ability (AUC_T: 0.9993, AUC_P: 0.8968). The landslide susceptibility maps produced in this study can be used to manage landslide hazard and risk in Linyou County and other similar areas.

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Flood Susceptibility Assessment Using Novel Ensemble of Hyperpipes and Support Vector Regression Algorithms

Water ◽

10.3390/w13020241 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 241

Author(s):

Asish Saha ◽

Subodh Chandra Pal ◽

Alireza Arabameri ◽

Thomas Blaschke ◽

Somayeh Panahi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Support Vector Regression ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽

Accuracy Assessment ◽

Research Work ◽

Dominant Factor ◽

Support Vector ◽

Accuracy Evaluation ◽

Ensemble Approach ◽

Flood Susceptibility

Recurrent floods are one of the major global threats among people, particularly in developing countries like India, as this nation has a tropical monsoon type of climate. Therefore, flood susceptibility (FS) mapping is indeed necessary to overcome this type of natural hazard phenomena. With this in mind, we evaluated the prediction performance of FS mapping in the Koiya River basin, Eastern India. The present research work was done through preparation of a sophisticated flood inventory map; eight flood conditioning variables were selected based on the topography and hydro-climatological condition, and by applying the novel ensemble approach of hyperpipes (HP) and support vector regression (SVR) machine learning (ML) algorithms. The ensemble approach of HP-SVR was also compared with the stand-alone ML algorithms of HP and SVR. In relative importance of variables, distance to river was the most dominant factor for flood occurrences followed by rainfall, land use land cover (LULC), and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The validation and accuracy assessment of FS maps was done through five popular statistical methods. The result of accuracy evaluation showed that the ensemble approach is the most optimal model (AUC = 0.915, sensitivity = 0.932, specificity = 0.902, accuracy = 0.928 and Kappa = 0.835) in FS assessment, followed by HP (AUC = 0.885) and SVR (AUC = 0.871).

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Geohazards Susceptibility Assessment along the Upper Indus Basin Using Four Machine Learning and Statistical Models

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi10050315 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 315

Author(s):

Hilal Ahmad ◽

Chen Ningsheng ◽

Mahfuzur Rahman ◽

Md Monirul Islam ◽

Hamid Reza Pourghasemi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Land Cover ◽

Debris Flows ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Annual Rainfall ◽

Slope Aspect ◽

Topographic Wetness Index ◽

Susceptibility Maps ◽

Landslides And Debris Flows

The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project passes through the Karakoram Highway in northern Pakistan, which is one of the most hazardous regions of the world. The most common hazards in this region are landslides and debris flows, which result in loss of life and severe infrastructure damage every year. This study assessed geohazards (landslides and debris flows) and developed susceptibility maps by considering four standalone machine-learning and statistical approaches, namely, Logistic Regression (LR), Shannon Entropy (SE), Weights-of-Evidence (WoE), and Frequency Ratio (FR) models. To this end, geohazard inventories were prepared using remote sensing techniques with field observations and historical hazard datasets. The spatial relationship of thirteen conditioning factors, namely, slope (degree), distance to faults, geology, elevation, distance to rivers, slope aspect, distance to road, annual mean rainfall, normalized difference vegetation index, profile curvature, stream power index, topographic wetness index, and land cover, with hazard distribution was analyzed. The results showed that faults, slope angles, elevation, lithology, land cover, and mean annual rainfall play a key role in controlling the spatial distribution of geohazards in the study area. The final susceptibility maps were validated against ground truth points and by plotting Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) curves. According to the AUROC curves, the success rates of the LR, WoE, FR, and SE models were 85.30%, 76.00, 74.60%, and 71.40%, and their prediction rates were 83.10%, 75.00%, 73.50%, and 70.10%, respectively; these values show higher performance of LR over the other three models. Furthermore, 11.19%, 9.24%, 10.18%, 39.14%, and 30.25% of the areas corresponded to classes of very-high, high, moderate, low, and very-low susceptibility, respectively. The developed geohazard susceptibility map can be used by relevant government officials for the smooth implementation of the CPEC project at the regional scale.

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Mapping of the Canopy Openings in Mixed Beech–Fir Forest at Sentinel-2 Subpixel Level Using UAV and Machine Learning Approach

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12233925 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (23) ◽

pp. 3925

Author(s):

Ivan Pilaš ◽

Mateo Gašparović ◽

Alan Novkinić ◽

Damir Klobučar

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Forest Canopy ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Predictive Performance ◽

Spatial Extent ◽

Gradient Boosting ◽

Support Vector ◽

Stochastic Gradient Boosting ◽

Extreme Gradient Boosting ◽

Sentinel 2

The presented study demonstrates a bi-sensor approach suitable for rapid and precise up-to-date mapping of forest canopy gaps for the larger spatial extent. The approach makes use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) red, green and blue (RGB) images on smaller areas for highly precise forest canopy mask creation. Sentinel-2 was used as a scaling platform for transferring information from the UAV to a wider spatial extent. Various approaches to an improvement in the predictive performance were examined: (I) the highest R2 of the single satellite index was 0.57, (II) the highest R2 using multiple features obtained from the single-date, S-2 image was 0.624, and (III) the highest R2 on the multitemporal set of S-2 images was 0.697. Satellite indices such as Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation Index (ARVI), Infrared Percentage Vegetation Index (IPVI), Normalized Difference Index (NDI45), Pigment-Specific Simple Ratio Index (PSSRa), Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index (MCARI), Color Index (CI), Redness Index (RI), and Normalized Difference Turbidity Index (NDTI) were the dominant predictors in most of the Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. The more complex ML algorithms such as the Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Stochastic Gradient Boosting (GBM), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Catboost that provided the best performance on the training set exhibited weaker generalization capabilities. Therefore, a simpler and more robust Elastic Net (ENET) algorithm was chosen for the final map creation.

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Linear Support Vector Machines for Prediction of Student Performance in School-Based Education

Mathematical Problems in Engineering ◽

10.1155/2020/4761468 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Nalindren Naicker ◽

Timothy Adeliyi ◽

Jeanette Wing

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Support Vector Machines ◽

Student Performance ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Learning Algorithms ◽

The State ◽

Machine Learning Algorithms ◽

Superior Performance ◽

Support Vector ◽

Vector Machines

Educational Data Mining (EDM) is a rich research field in computer science. Tools and techniques in EDM are useful to predict student performance which gives practitioners useful insights to develop appropriate intervention strategies to improve pass rates and increase retention. The performance of the state-of-the-art machine learning classifiers is very much dependent on the task at hand. Investigating support vector machines has been used extensively in classification problems; however, the extant of literature shows a gap in the application of linear support vector machines as a predictor of student performance. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of linear support vector machines with the performance of the state-of-the-art classical machine learning algorithms in order to determine the algorithm that would improve prediction of student performance. In this quantitative study, an experimental research design was used. Experiments were set up using feature selection on a publicly available dataset of 1000 alpha-numeric student records. Linear support vector machines benchmarked with ten categorical machine learning algorithms showed superior performance in predicting student performance. The results of this research showed that features like race, gender, and lunch influence performance in mathematics whilst access to lunch was the primary factor which influences reading and writing performance.

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Multi-Hazard Exposure Mapping Using Machine Learning Techniques: A Case Study from Iran

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs11161943 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (16) ◽

pp. 1943 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Omid Rahmati ◽

Saleh Yousefi ◽

Zahra Kalantari ◽

Evelyn Uuemaa ◽

Teimur Teimurian ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Machine Learning Techniques ◽

Support Vector ◽

Mountainous Area ◽

Data Set ◽

Boosted Regression Tree ◽

Hazard Exposure ◽

Learning Techniques

Mountainous areas are highly prone to a variety of nature-triggered disasters, which often cause disabling harm, death, destruction, and damage. In this work, an attempt was made to develop an accurate multi-hazard exposure map for a mountainous area (Asara watershed, Iran), based on state-of-the art machine learning techniques. Hazard modeling for avalanches, rockfalls, and floods was performed using three state-of-the-art models—support vector machine (SVM), boosted regression tree (BRT), and generalized additive model (GAM). Topo-hydrological and geo-environmental factors were used as predictors in the models. A flood dataset (n = 133 flood events) was applied, which had been prepared using Sentinel-1-based processing and ground-based information. In addition, snow avalanche (n = 58) and rockfall (n = 101) data sets were used. The data set of each hazard type was randomly divided to two groups: Training (70%) and validation (30%). Model performance was evaluated by the true skill score (TSS) and the area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) criteria. Using an exposure map, the multi-hazard map was converted into a multi-hazard exposure map. According to both validation methods, the SVM model showed the highest accuracy for avalanches (AUC = 92.4%, TSS = 0.72) and rockfalls (AUC = 93.7%, TSS = 0.81), while BRT demonstrated the best performance for flood hazards (AUC = 94.2%, TSS = 0.80). Overall, multi-hazard exposure modeling revealed that valleys and areas close to the Chalous Road, one of the most important roads in Iran, were associated with high and very high levels of risk. The proposed multi-hazard exposure framework can be helpful in supporting decision making on mountain social-ecological systems facing multiple hazards.

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Data Mining and Statistical Approaches in Debris-Flow Susceptibility Modelling Using Airborne LiDAR Data

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s19163451 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (16) ◽

pp. 3451 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Usman Salihu Lay ◽

Biswajeet Pradhan ◽

Zainuddin Bin Md Yusoff ◽

Ahmad Fikri Bin Abdallah ◽

Jagannath Aryal ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Data Mining ◽

Debris Flow ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines ◽

Slope Aspect ◽

Support Vector ◽

Mountainous Area ◽

Topographic Wetness Index ◽

Conditioning Factors ◽

Debris Flow Susceptibility

Cameron Highland is a popular tourist hub in the mountainous area of Peninsular Malaysia. Most communities in this area suffer frequent incidence of debris flow, especially during monsoon seasons. Despite the loss of lives and properties recorded annually from debris flow, most studies in the region concentrate on landslides and flood susceptibilities. In this study, debris-flow susceptibility prediction was carried out using two data mining techniques; Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and Support Vector Regression (SVR) models. The existing inventory of debris-flow events (640 points) were selected for training 70% (448) and validation 30% (192). Twelve conditioning factors namely; elevation, plan-curvature, slope angle, total curvature, slope aspect, Stream Transport Index (STI), profile curvature, roughness index, Stream Catchment Area (SCA), Stream Power Index (SPI), Topographic Wetness Index (TWI) and Topographic Position Index (TPI) were selected from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-derived Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data. Multi-collinearity was checked using Information Factor, Cramer’s V, and Gini Index to identify the relative importance of conditioning factors. The susceptibility models were produced and categorized into five classes; not-susceptible, low, moderate, high and very-high classes. Models performances were evaluated using success and prediction rates where the area under the curve (AUC) showed a higher performance of MARS (93% and 83%) over SVR (76% and 72%). The result of this study will be important in contingency hazards and risks management plans to reduce the loss of lives and properties in the area.

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Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs11020196 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 196 ◽

Cited By ~ 101

Author(s):

Omid Ghorbanzadeh ◽

Thomas Blaschke ◽

Khalil Gholamnia ◽

Sansar Meena ◽

Dirk Tiede ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Neural Networks ◽

Deep Learning ◽

Expert Knowledge ◽

Accuracy Assessment ◽

Window Size ◽

Optical Data ◽

Support Vector ◽

Learning Methods ◽

Machine Learning Methods

There is a growing demand for detailed and accurate landslide maps and inventories around the globe, but particularly in hazard-prone regions such as the Himalayas. Most standard mapping methods require expert knowledge, supervision and fieldwork. In this study, we use optical data from the Rapid Eye satellite and topographic factors to analyze the potential of machine learning methods, i.e., artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machines (SVM) and random forest (RF), and different deep-learning convolution neural networks (CNNs) for landslide detection. We use two training zones and one test zone to independently evaluate the performance of different methods in the highly landslide-prone Rasuwa district in Nepal. Twenty different maps are created using ANN, SVM and RF and different CNN instantiations and are compared against the results of extensive fieldwork through a mean intersection-over-union (mIOU) and other common metrics. This accuracy assessment yields the best result of 78.26% mIOU for a small window size CNN, which uses spectral information only. The additional information from a 5 m digital elevation model helps to discriminate between human settlements and landslides but does not improve the overall classification accuracy. CNNs do not automatically outperform ANN, SVM and RF, although this is sometimes claimed. Rather, the performance of CNNs strongly depends on their design, i.e., layer depth, input window sizes and training strategies. Here, we conclude that the CNN method is still in its infancy as most researchers will either use predefined parameters in solutions like Google TensorFlow or will apply different settings in a trial-and-error manner. Nevertheless, deep-learning can improve landslide mapping in the future if the effects of the different designs are better understood, enough training samples exist, and the effects of augmentation strategies to artificially increase the number of existing samples are better understood.

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