Elsevier

Computers & Geosciences

Volume 73, December 2014, Pages 208-221
Computers & Geosciences

A GIS-based extended fuzzy multi-criteria evaluation for landslide susceptibility mapping

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2014.08.001Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • We have developed a new multi-criteria decision analysis method for landslide mapping.

  • Our method is based on fuzzy membership functions derived from GIS analysis.

  • We integrated extended fuzzy with AHP to overcome of associated uncertainty with GIS-Multicriteria Decision Making.

  • The results demonstrate that the accuracy of GIS-Multicriteria can be improved through FAHP.

Abstract

Landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) is making increasing use of GIS-based spatial analysis in combination with multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) methods. We have developed a new multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method for LSM and applied it to the Izeh River basin in south-western Iran. Our method is based on fuzzy membership functions (FMFs) derived from GIS analysis. It makes use of nine causal landslide factors identified by local landslide experts. Fuzzy set theory was first integrated with an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) in order to use pairwise comparisons to compare LSM criteria for ranking purposes. FMFs were then applied in order to determine the criteria weights to be used in the development of a landslide susceptibility map. Finally, a landslide inventory database was used to validate the LSM map by comparing it with known landslides within the study area. Results indicated that the integration of fuzzy set theory with AHP produced significantly improved accuracies and a high level of reliability in the resulting landslide susceptibility map. Approximately 53% of known landslides within our study area fell within zones classified as having “very high susceptibility”, with the further 31% falling into zones classified as having “high susceptibility”.

Keywords

GIS based MCDA
Fuzzy-AHP
Membership functions
Landslide susceptibility maps
Izeh River basin

Cited by (0)