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The Muskingum model is one of the most widely used hydrological methods in flood routing, and calibrating its parameters is an ongoing research challenge. We optimized Muskingum model parameters to accurately simulate hourly output hydrographs of three flood-prone rivers in the Karun watershed, Iran. We evaluated model performance using the correlation coefficient (CC), the ratio of the root-mean-square error to the standard deviation of measured data (PSR), Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), and index of agreement (d). The results show that the gray wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm, with CC = 0.99455, PSR = 0.155, NSE = 0.9757, and d = 0.9945, performed better in simulating the flood in the first study area. The Kalman filter (KF) improved these measures by + 0.00516, − 0.1246, + 0.02328, and + 0.00527, respectively. Our findings for the second flood show that the gravitational search algorithm (GSA), with CC = 0.9941, PSR = 0.1669, NSE = 0.9721, and d = 0.9921, performed better than all other algorithms. The Kalman filter enhanced each of the measures by + 0.00178, − 0.0175, + 0.0055 and + 0.0021, respectively. The gravitational search algorithm also performed best in the third flood, with CC = 0.9786, PSR = 0.2604, NSE = 0.9321, and d = 0.9848, and with improvements in accuracy using the Kalman filter of + 0.01081, − 0.0971, + 0.394, and + 0.0078, respectively. We recommend the use of GWO-KF for flood routing studies with flood events of high volumes and hydrograph base times, and use of GSA-KF for studies with flood events of high volumes and hydrograph base times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides are a dangerous natural hazard that can critically harm road infrastructure in mountainous places, resulting in significant damage and fatalities. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of three machine learning algorithms (MLAs) for landslide susceptibility mapping including random forest (RF), decision tree (DT), and support vector machine (SVM). We selected a case study region that is frequently affected by landslides, the important Kamyaran–Sarvabad road in the Kurdistan province of Iran. Altogether, 14 landslide evaluation factors were input into the MLAs including slope, aspect, elevation, river density, distance to river, distance to fault, fault density, distance to road, road density, land use, slope curvature, lithology, stream power index (SPI), and topographic wetness index (TWI). We identified 64 locations of landslides by field survey of which 70% were randomly employed for building and training the three MLAs while the remaining locations were used for validation. The area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUC) reached a value of 0.94 for the decision tree compared to 0.82 for the random forest, and 0.75 for support vector machines model. Thus, the decision tree model was most accurate in identifying the areas at risk for future landslides. The obtained results may inform geoscientists and those in decision-making roles for landslide management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides along the main roads in the mountains cause fatalities, ecosystem damage, and land degradation. This study mapped the susceptibility to landslides along the Saqqez-Marivan main road located in Kurdistan province, Iran, comparing an ensemble fuzzy logic with analytic network process (fuzzy logic-ANP; FLANP) and TOPSIS (fuzzy logic-TOPSIS; FLTOPSIS) in terms of their prediction capacity. First, 100 landslides identified through field surveys were randomly allocated to a 70% dataset and a 30% dataset, respectively, for training and validating the methods. Eleven landslide conditioning factors, including slope, aspect, elevation, lithology, land use, distance to fault, distance to a river, distance to road, soil type, curvature, and precipitation were considered. The performance of the methods was evaluated by inspecting the areas under the receiver operating curve (AUCROC). The prediction accuracies were 0.983 and 0.938, respectively, for the FLTOPSIS and FLANP methods. Our findings demonstrate that although both models are known to be promising, the FLTOPSIS method had a better capacity for predicting the susceptibility of landslides in the study area. Therefore, the susceptibility map developed through the FLTOPSIS method is suitable to inform management and planning of areas prone to landslides for land allocation and development purposes, especially in mountainous areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil erosion is a major cause of damage to agricultural lands in many parts of the world and is of particular concern in semiarid parts of Iran. We use five machine learning techniques—Random Forest (RF), M5P, Reduced Error Pruning Tree (REPTree), Gaussian Processes (GP), and Pace Regression (PR)—under two scenarios to predict soil erodibility in the Dehgolan region, Kurdistan Province, Iran. Our models are based on a variety of soil properties, including soil texture, structure, permeability, bulk density, aggregates, organic matter, and chemical constituents. We checked the validity of the models with statistical metrics, including the coefficient of determination (R2 ), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error (RMSE), T-tests, Taylor diagrams, and box plots. All five algorithms show a positive correlation between the soil erodibility factor (K) and silt, sand, fine sand, bulk density, and infiltration. The GP model has the highest prediction accuracy (R² ¼ 0.843, MAE ¼ 0.0044, RMSE ¼ 0.0050). It outperformed the RF (R² ¼ 0.812, MAE ¼ 0.0050, RMSE ¼ 0.0061), PR, (R² ¼ 0.794, MAE ¼ 0.0037, RMSE ¼ 0.0052), M5P (R² ¼ 0.781, MAE ¼ 0.0043, RMSE ¼ 0.0053), and REPTree (R² ¼ 0.752, MAE ¼ 0.0045, RMSE ¼ 0.0056) algorithms and thus is a useful complement to studies aimed at predicting soil erodibility in areas with similar climate and soil characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this study was to compare the performance of Support Vector Machines (SVM), Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD), and Bayesian Logistic Regression (BLR) algorithms for landslide susceptibility modeling in the Yozidar-Degaga region, Iran. Initially, a distribution map with 175 landslides and 175 non-landslide locations was prepared and the data were classified into a ratio of 80% and 20% for training and model validation, respectively. Based on Information Gain Ratio (IGR) technique, 13 derived factors from topographic data, land cover and rainfall were selected for modeling. Then, the SVM, SGD, and BLR algorithms were selected based on size of the data and required accuracy of the output, to learn and prepare landslide susceptibility maps. Statistical criteria were employed to evaluate the models for both training and validation datasets. Finally, the performance of these models was evaluated by the area under the receiver operating curve (AUC). The results showed that SVM algorithm (AUC = 0.920) performed better than SGD (AUC = 0.918) and BLR (AUC = 0.918) algorithms. Therefore, the SVM model can be suggested as a useful tool for better management of landslide-affected areas in the study area. In this study, all three models (SVM, SGD and BLR) were implemented in WEKA 3.6.9 software environment to prepare landslide susceptibility maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to apply and compare the performance of the three machine learning algorithms–support vector machine (SVM), bayesian logistic regression (BLR), and alternating decision tree (ADTree)–to map landslide susceptibility along the mountainous road of the Salavat Abad saddle, Kurdistan province, Iran. We identified 66 shallow landslide locations, based on field surveys, by recording the locations of the landslides by a global position System (GPS), Google Earth imagery and black-and-white aerial photographs (scale 1: 20,000) and 19 landslide conditioning factors, then tested these factors using the information gain ratio (IGR) technique. We checked the validity of the models using statistical metrics, including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, kappa, root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). We found that, although all three machine learning algorithms yielded excellent performance, the SVM algorithm (AUC = 0.984) slightly outperformed the BLR (AUC = 0.980), and ADTree (AUC = 0.977) algorithms. We observed that not only all three algorithms are useful and effective tools for identifying shallow landslide-prone areas but also the BLR algorithm can be used such as the SVM algorithm as a soft computing benchmark algorithm to check the performance of the models in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gully erosion destroys agricultural and domestic grazing land in many countries, especially those with arid and semi-arid climates and easily eroded rocks and soils. It also generates large amounts of sediment that can adversely impact downstream river channels. The main objective of this research is to accurately detect and predict areas prone to gully erosion. In this paper, we couple hybrid models of a commonly used base classifier (reduced pruning error tree, REPTree) with AdaBoost (AB), bagging (Bag), and random subspace (RS) algorithms to create gully erosion susceptibility maps for a sub-basin of the Shoor River watershed in northwestern Iran. We compare the performance of these models in terms of their ability to predict gully erosion and discuss their potential use in other arid and semi-arid areas. Our database comprises 242 gully erosion locations, which we randomly divided into training and testing sets with a ratio of 70/30. Based on expert knowledge and analysis of aerial photographs and satellite images, we selected 12 conditioning factors for gully erosion. We used multi-collinearity statistical techniques in the modeling process, and checked model performance using statistical indexes including precision, recall, F-measure, Matthew correlation coefficient (MCC), receiver operatic characteristic curve (ROC), precision–recall graph (PRC), Kappa, root mean square error (RMSE), relative absolute error (PRSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and relative absolute error (RAE). Results show that rainfall, elevation, and river density are the most important factors for gully erosion susceptibility mapping in the study area. All three hybrid models that we tested significantly enhanced and improved the predictive power of REPTree (AUC=0.800), but the RS-REPTree (AUC= 0.860) ensemble model outperformed the Bag-REPTree (AUC= 0.841) and the AB-REPTree (AUC= 0.805) models. We suggest that decision makers, planners, and environmental engineers employ the RS-REPTree hybrid model to better manage gully erosion-prone areas in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel artificial intelligence approach of Bayesian Logistic Regression (BLR) and its ensembles [Random Subspace (RS), Adaboost (AB), Multiboost (MB) and Bagging] was introduced for landslide susceptibility mapping in a part of Kamyaran city in Kurdistan Province, Iran. A spatial database was generated which includes a total of 60 landslide locations and a set of conditioning factors tested by the Information Gain Ratio technique. Performance of these models was evaluated using the area under the ROC curve (AUROC) and statistical index-based methods. Results showed that the hybrid ensemble models could significantly improve the performance of the base classifier of BLR (AUROC = 0.930). However, RS model (AUROC = 0.975) had the highest performance in comparison to other landslide ensemble models, followed by Bagging (AUROC = 0.972), MB (AUROC = 0.970) and AB (AUROC = 0.957) models, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a hybrid intelligent approach based on Naïve Bayes trees (NBT) and random subspace (RS) ensemble for landslide susceptibility mapping at the Bijar region, Kurdistan province (Iran). According to current literature, both NB and RS are machine learning techniques that have been rarely used for modeling of landslides. NBT is a relatively new decision trees-based algorithm in conjunction with Bayesian theories in building trees for classification, whereas RS is a relatively new ensemble framework with ability to improve performance of prediction models. In the hybrid approach, RS is used to generate subsets from the training data each subset is then used to construct a based classifier using NBT. For this purpose, a geospatial database for the study area was constructed that consisted of 111 landslide locations and 17 conditioning factors (slope degree, slope aspect, elevation above sea, curvature, profile curvature, plan curvature, stream power index, topographic wetness index, length-angle of slope, lithology, land use, distance to road, distance to fault, distance to stream, fault density, stream density, and rainfall). The database was used to construct and verify the proposed model. Performance of the model was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristics curve and area under the curve (AUC). The results showed that the proposed model performed well in this study (AUC = 0.886), and it improved significantly the performance of the NBT base classifier (AUC = 0.811). Overall, RS-NBT is promising which can be utilized for landslide susceptibility assessment in other landslide-prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We mapped landslide susceptibility in Kamyaran city of Kurdistan Province, Iran, using a robust deep-learning (DP) model based on a combination of extreme learning machine (ELM), deep belief network (DBN), back propagation (BP), and genetic algorithm (GA). A total of 118 landslide locations were recorded and divided in the training and testing datasets. We selected 25 conditioning factors, and of these, we specified the most important ones by an information gain ratio (IGR) technique. We assessed the performance of the DP model using statistical measures including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, F1-measure, and area under-the-receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Three benchmark algorithms, i.e., support vector machine (SVM), REPTree, and NBTree, were used to check the applicability of the proposed model. The results by IGR concluded that of the 25 conditioning factors, only 16 factors were important for our modeling procedure, and of these, distance to road, road density, lithology and land use were the four most significant factors. Results based on the testing dataset revealed that the DP model had the highest accuracy (0.926) of the compared algorithms, followed by NBTree (0.917), REPTree (0.903), and SVM (0.894). The landslide susceptibility maps prepared from the DP model with AUC = 0.870 performed the best. We consider the DP model a suitable tool for landslide susceptibility mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The robustness of landslide prediction models has become a major focus of researchers worldwide. We developed two novel hybrid predictive models that combine the self-organizing, deep-learning group method of data handling (GMDH) with two swarm intelligence optimization algorithms, i.e., cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) and whale optimization algorithm (WOA) for spatially explicit prediction of landslide susceptibility. Eleven landslide-causing factors and 334 historic landslides in a 31,340 km2 landslide-prone area in Iran were used to produce geospatial training and validation datasets. The GMDH model was employed to develop a basic predictive model that was then restructured and its parameters were optimized using the CSA and WOA algorithms, yielding the novel hybrid GMDH-CSA and GMDH-WOA models. The hybrid models were validated and compared to the standalone GMDH model by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC) curve and root mean square error (RMSE). The results demonstrated that the hybrid models overcame the computational shortcomings of the basic GMDH model and significantly improved landslide susceptibility prediction (GMDH-CSA, AUC = 0.909 and RMSE = 0.089; GMDH-WOA, AUC = 0.902 and RMSE = 0.129; standalone GMDH, AUC = 0.791 and RMSE = 0.226). Further, the hybrid models were more robust than the standalone GMDH model, showing consistently excellent performance when the training and validation datasets were changed. Overall, the swarm intelligence-optimized models, but not the standalone model, identified the best trade-offs among objectives, accuracy, and robustness. [Display omitted] • Optimizing GMDH parameters using two swarm intelligence optimization algorithms. • Comparing predictive capabilities of the hybrid GMDH-CSA and GMDH-WOA models. • Overcoming the computational shortcomings of the standalone GMDH model. • Proving model robustness with AUC > 0.90 for modeling landslide susceptibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes the application of logistic regression to rock-fall susceptibility mapping along 11 km of a mountainous road on the Salavat Abad saddle, in southwest Kurdistan, Iran. To determine the factors influencing rock-falls, data layers of slope degree, slope aspect, slope curvature, elevation, distance to road, distance to fault, lithology, and land use were analyzed by logistic regression analysis. The results are shown as rock-fall susceptibility maps. A spatial database, which included 68 sites (34 rock-fall point cells with value of 1 and 34 no rock-fall point cells with value of 0) was developed and analyzed using a Geographic Information System, GIS. The results are shown as four classes of rock-fall susceptibility. In this study, distance to fault, lithology, slope curvature, slope degree, and distance to road were found to be the most important factors affecting rock-fall. It was concluded that about 76 % of the study area can be classified as having moderate and high susceptibility classes. Rock-fall point cells were used to verify results of the rock-fall susceptibility map using success curve rate and the area under the curve. The verification results showed that the area under the curve for rock-fall susceptibility map is 77.57 %. The results from this study demonstrated that the use of a logistic regression model within a GIS framework is useful and suitable for rock-fall susceptibility mapping. The rock-fall susceptibility map can be used to reduce susceptibility associated with rock-fall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, logistic regression analysis has been used to create a landslide hazard map for Sajarood basin, Northern Iran. At first, an inventory map of 95 landslides was used to produce a dependent variable, a value of 0 for absence and 1 for presence of landslides. The effect of causative parameters on landslide occurrence was assessed by the corresponding coefficient that appears in the logistic regression function. The interpretation of the coefficients shows that the road network plays the major role in determining landslide occurrence. Elevation, slope curvature, rainfall and distance to fault were excluded from the final analysis, because these variables do not significantly add to the predictive power of the logistic regression. After running the final probability function into Arc/view 3.2 software, a landslide susceptibility map has been produced. The accuracy assessment shows an overall accuracy of the landslide susceptibility map to be 85.3%. An area of 53.01% is found to be located in a very low, 18.33% in low, 20.96% in moderate and 7.7% in high-risk regions. The proposed susceptibility map was tested using -2LL, Cox and Snell R2, Nagelkerk R2 and Roc procedure, and it is found to be very reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable flash flood susceptibility maps are a vital tool for land planners and emergency management officials for early flood warning and mitigation. We have developed a new ensemble learning model that predicts flash flood susceptibility at Haraz, Iran. The new model couples a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) model with an extreme learning machine (ELM) and backpropagation (BP) structure optimized by a genetic algorithm (GA) named GA-BN-NN model. We applied the support vector machine (SVM) technique to a database of 194 flood locations with ten conditioning factors. An artificial neural network (ANN) algorithm with a multi-layer perceptron function, MLP-BP, optimized by a genetic algorithm, GA-MLP, and a shuffled frog-leaping algorithm, SFLA-MLP, were used as benchmark models for assessing the power prediction of the proposed model. Statistical measures, including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, F1-measure and Jaccard coefficient, and root mean square error, were used to evaluate the goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy, respectively, of the training and testing datasets. We found that all ten factors are positively correlated with flood occurrence, but slope angle has the highest average merit (AM = 9.7) and thus contributes most to the occurrence of flooding. Results indicate that the GA-BN-NN model has the highest goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy (AUC = 0.966) and hence outperforms other ensemble learning models that we tested — the SFLA-MLP, MLP-BP, and GA-MLP models. We thus conclude that the proposed model is a promising technique for managing risk in flood-prone areas around the world. • A new deep learning model, E(T)-ELM-DBN-BP, was explored for flash flood susceptibility mapping. • The LSSVM technique was applied to determine the most important flash flood conditioning factors. • The MLP was optimized by BP, GA and SFLA algorithms as benchmark models to validity of the new model. • The E(T)-ELM-DBN-BP model outperformed the E(T)-MLP-BP, E(W)-MLP-GA and E(W)-MLP-SFLA models. • The new proposed model was offered as a promising and trustworthy tool for flash flood mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zrebar Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Iran and it plays an important role in the ecosystem of the environment, while its desiccation has a negative impact on the surrounded ecosystem. Despite this, this lake provides an interesting recreation setting in terms of ecotourism. The prediction and forecasting of the water level of the lake through simple but practical methods can provide a reliable tool for future lake water resource management. In the present study, we predict the daily water level of Zrebar Lake in Iran through well-known decision tree-based algorithms, including the M5 pruned (M5P), random forest (RF), random tree (RT) and reduced error pruning tree (REPT). We used five different water input combinations to find the most effective one. For our modeling, we chose 70% of the dataset for training (from 2011 to 2015) and 30% for model evaluation (from 2015 to 2017). We evaluated the models' performances using different quantitative (root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), coefficient of determination (R2), percent bias (PBIAS) and ratio of the root mean square error to the standard deviation of measured data (RSR)) and visual frameworks (Taylor diagram and box plot). Our results showed that water level with a one-day lag time had the highest effect on the result and, by increasing the lag time, its effect on the result was decreased. This result indicated that all the developed models had a good prediction capability, but the M5P model outperformed the others, followed by RF and RT equally and then REPT. Our results showed that these algorithms can predict water level accurately only with a one-day lag time in water level as an input and they are cost-effective tools for future predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, gully erosion susceptibility was evaluated for the area of the Robat Turk Watershed in Iran. The assessment of gully erosion susceptibility was performed using four state-of-the-art data mining techniques: random forest (RF), credal decision trees (CDTree), kernel logistic regression (KLR), and best-first decision tree (BFTree). To the best of our knowledge, the KLR and CDTree algorithms have been rarely applied to gully erosion modeling. In the first step, from the 242 gully erosion locations that were identified, 70% (170 gullies) were selected as the training dataset, and the other 30% (72 gullies) were considered for the result validation process. In the next step, twelve gully erosion conditioning factors, including topographic, geomorphological, environmental, and hydrologic factors, were selected to estimate gully erosion susceptibility. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was used to estimate the performance of the models. The results revealed that the RF model had the best performance (AUC = 0.893), followed by the KLR (AUC = 0.825), the CDTree (AUC = 0.808), and the BFTree (AUC = 0.789) models. Overall, the RF model performed significantly better than the others, which may support the application of this method to a transferable susceptibility model in other areas. Therefore, we suggest using the RF, KLR, and CDT models for gully erosion susceptibility mapping in other prone areas to assess their reproducibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater is an important natural resource in arid and semi-arid environments, where discharge from karst springs is utilized as the principal water supply for human use. The occurrence of karst springs over large areas is often poorly documented, and interpolation strategies are often utilized to map the distribution and discharge potential of springs. This study develops a novel method to delineate karst spring zones on the basis of various hydrogeological factors. A case study of the Bojnourd Region, Iran, where spring discharge measurements are available for 359 sites, is used to demonstrate application of the new approach. Spatial mapping is achieved using ensemble modelling, which is based on certainty factors (CF) and logistic regression (LR). Maps of the CF and LR components of groundwater potential were generated individually, and then, combined to prepare an ensemble map of the study area. The accuracy (A) of the ensemble map was then assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Results of this analysis show that LR (A = 78%) outperformed CF (A = 67%) in terms of the comparison between model predictions and known occurrences of karst springs (i.e., calibration data). However, combining the CF and LR results through ensemble modelling produced superior accuracy (A = 85%) in terms of spring potential mapping. By combining CF and LR statistical models through ensemble modelling, weaknesses in CF and LR methods are offset, and therefore, we recommend this ensemble approach for similar karst mapping projects. The methodology developed here offers an efficient method for assessing spring discharge and karst spring potentials over regional scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We generated high-quality shallow landslide susceptibility maps for Bijar County, Kurdistan Province, Iran, using Random Forest (RAF), an ensemble computational intelligence method and three meta classifiers—Bagging (BA, BA-RAF), Random Subspace (RS, RS-RAF), and Rotation Forest (RF, RF-RAF). Modeling and validation were done on 111 shallow landslide locations using 20 conditioning factors tested by the Information Gain Ratio (IGR) technique. We assessed model performance with statistically based indexes, including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, kappa, root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiver operatic characteristic curve (AUC). All four machine learning models that we tested yielded excellent goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy, but the RF-RAF ensemble model (AUC = 0.936) outperformed the BA-RAF, RS-RAF (AUC = 0.907), and RAF (AUC = 0.812) models. The results also show that the Random Forest model significantly improved the predictive capability of the RAF-based classifier and, therefore, can be considered as a useful and an effective tool in regional shallow landslide susceptibility mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping flood-prone areas is a key activity in flood disaster management. In this paper, we propose a new flood susceptibility mapping technique. We employ new ensemble models based on bagging as a meta-classifier and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) coarse, cosine, cubic, and weighted base classifiers to spatially forecast flooding in the Haraz watershed in northern Iran. We identified flood-prone areas using data from Sentinel-1 sensor. We then selected 10 conditioning factors to spatially predict floods and assess their predictive power using the Relief Attribute Evaluation (RFAE) method. Model validation was performed using two statistical error indices and the area under the curve (AUC). Our results show that the Bagging–Cubic–KNN ensemble model outperformed other ensemble models. It decreased the overfitting and variance problems in the training dataset and enhanced the prediction accuracy of the Cubic–KNN model (AUC=0.660). We therefore recommend that the Bagging–Cubic–KNN model be more widely applied for the sustainable management of flood-prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a hybrid computational intelligence model that is a combination of alternating decision tree (ADTree) classifier and AdaBoost (AB) ensemble, namely "AB–ADTree", for groundwater spring potential mapping (GSPM) at the Chilgazi watershed in the Kurdistan province, Iran. Although ADTree and its ensembles have been widely used for environmental and ecological modeling, they have rarely been applied to GSPM. To that end, a groundwater spring inventory map and thirteen conditioning factors tested by the chi-square attribute evaluation (CSAE) technique were used to generate training and testing datasets for constructing and validating the proposed model. The performance of the proposed model was evaluated using statistical-index-based measures, such as positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), sensitivity, specificity accuracy, root mean square error (RMSE), and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUROC). The proposed hybrid model was also compared with five state-of-the-art benchmark soft computing models, including single ADTree, support vector machine (SVM), stochastic gradient descent (SGD), logistic model tree (LMT), logistic regression (LR), and random forest (RF). Results indicate that the proposed hybrid model significantly improved the predictive capability of the ADTree-based classifier (AUROC = 0.789). In addition, it was found that the hybrid model, AB–ADTree, (AUROC = 0.815), had the highest goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy, followed by the LMT (AUROC = 0.803), RF (AUC = 0.803), SGD, and SVM (AUROC = 0.790) models. Indeed, this model is a powerful and robust technique for mapping of groundwater spring potential in the study area. Therefore, the proposed model is a promising tool to help planners, decision makers, managers, and governments in the management and planning of groundwater resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the results of two data-mining algorithms including support vector machine (SVM) and logistic model tree (LMT) for shallow landslide modelling in Kamyaran county where located in Kurdistan Province, Iran. A total of 60 landslide locations were identified using different sources and randomly divided into a ratio of 70/30 for landslide modeling and validation process. After that, 21 conditioning factors, with a raster resolution of 20 m, based on the information gain ratio (IGR) technique were selected. Performance of the models was evaluated using area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUROC), and also several statistical-based indexes. Results depicted that only eight factors including distance to river, river density, stream power index (SPI), rainfall, valley depth, topographic wetness index (TWI), solar radiation, and plan curvature were known more effective for landslide modeling using training data set. The results also revealed that the SVM model (AUROC = 0.882) outperformed and outclassed the LMT model (AUROC = 0.737). Therefore, analysis and comparison of the results showed that the SVM model by RBF function performed well for landslide spatial prediction in the study area. Eventually, the findings of this study can be useful for land-use planning, reducing the risk of landslide, and decision-making in areas prone to landslide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prepared a landslide susceptibility map for the Sarkhoon watershed, Chaharmahal-w-bakhtiari, Iran, using novel ensemble artificial intelligence approaches. A classifier of support vector machine (SVM) was employed as a base classifier, and four Meta/ensemble classifiers, including Adaboost (AB), bagging (BA), rotation forest (RF), and random subspace (RS), were used to construct new ensemble models. SVM has been used previously to spatially predict landslides, but not together with its ensembles. We selected 20 conditioning factors and randomly portioned 98 landslide locations into training (70%) and validating (30%) groups. Several statistical metrics, including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, kappa, root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiver operatic characteristic curve (AUC), were used for model comparison and validation. Using the One-R Attribute Evaluation (ORAE) technique, we found that all 20 conditioning factors were significant in identifying landslide locations, but "distance to road" was found to be the most important. The RS (AUC = 0.837) and RF (AUC = 0.834) significantly improved the goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy of the SVM (AUC = 0.810), whereas the BA (AUC = 0.807) and AB (AUC = 0.779) did not. The random subspace based support vector machine (RSSVM) model is a promising technique for helping to better manage land in landslide-prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods are some of the most dangerous and most frequent natural disasters occurring in the northern region of Iran. Flooding in this area frequently leads to major urban, financial, anthropogenic, and environmental impacts. Therefore, the development of flood susceptibility maps used to identify flood zones in the catchment is necessary for improved flood management and decision making. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of an Evidential Belief Function (EBF) model, both as an individual model and in combination with Logistic Regression (LR) methods, in preparing flood susceptibility maps for the Haraz Catchment in the Mazandaran Province, Iran. The spatial database created consisted of a flood inventory, altitude, slope angle, plan curvature, Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), Stream Power Index (SPI), distance from river, rainfall, geology, land use, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for the region. After obtaining the required information from various sources, 151 of 211 recorded flooding points were used for model training and preparation of the flood susceptibility maps. For validation, the results of the models were compared to the 60 remaining flooding points. The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn, and the Area Under the Curve (AUC) was calculated to obtain the accuracy of the flood susceptibility maps prepared through success rates (using training data) and prediction rates (using validation data). The AUC results indicated that the EBF, EBF from LR, EBF-LR (enter), and EBF-LR (stepwise) success rates were 94.61%, 67.94%, 86.45%, and 56.31%, respectively, and the prediction rates were 94.55%, 66.41%, 83.19%, and 52.98%, respectively. The results showed that the EBF model had the highest accuracy in predicting flood susceptibility within the catchment, in which 15% of the total areas were located in high and very high susceptibility classes, and 62% were located in low and very low susceptibility classes. These results can be used for the planning and management of areas vulnerable to floods in order to prevent flood-induced damage; the results may also be useful for natural disaster assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we introduced a novel hybrid artificial intelligence approach of rotation forest (RF) as a Meta/ensemble classifier based on alternating decision tree (ADTree) as a base classifier called RF-ADTree in order to spatially predict gully erosion at Klocheh watershed of Kurdistan province, Iran. A total of 915 gully erosion locations along with 22 gully conditioning factors were used to construct a database. Some soft computing benchmark models (SCBM) including the ADTree, the Support Vector Machine by two kernel functions such as Polynomial and Radial Base Function (SVM-Polynomial and SVM-RBF), the Logistic Regression (LR), and the Naïve Bayes Multinomial Updatable (NBMU) models were used for comparison of the designed model. Results indicated that 19 conditioning factors were effective among which distance to river, geomorphology, land use, hydrological group, lithology and slope angle were the most remarkable factors for gully modeling process. Additionally, results of modeling concluded the RF-ADTree ensemble model could significantly improve (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.906) the prediction accuracy of the ADTree model (AUC = 0.882). The new proposed model had also the highest performance (AUC = 0.913) in comparison to the SVM-Polynomial model (AUC = 0.879), the SVM-RBF model (AUC = 0.867), the LR model (AUC = 0.75), the ADTree model (AUC = 0.861) and the NBMU model (AUC = 0.811). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documenting habitats of rangeland plant species is required to properly manage rangelands and to understand ecosystem processes. A reliable rangeland species potential map can help managers and policy makers design a sustainable grazing system on rangelands. The aim of this study is to map the plant species in the Qurveh City rangelands, Kurdistan Province, Iran, using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, including Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Naïve Bayes (NB), Bayes Net (BN) and Classification and Regression Tree (CART). A total of 185 rangeland species were used in the study, together with 20 conditioning factors, to build and validate models. The One-R feature section technique and multicollinearity test were used, respectively, to determine the most important factors and correlations between them. Model validation was performed using sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, F1-measure, Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC), Kappa, root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results showed that topographic wetness index (TWI), slope angle, elevation, soil phosphorus and soil potassium were the five most important factors to increase the rangeland plants habitat suitability. The Naïve Bayes algorithm (AUC = 0.782) had the highest performance and prediction accuracy and best consistency across the species in the investigated rangeland, followed by the SVM (AUC = 0.763), ANN (AUC = 0.762), CART (AUC = 0.627), and BN (AUC = 0.617) models. [Display omitted] • The habitats of important ecological rangeland plants were modeled and mapped. • Machine learning algorithms are robust tools in rangeland rehabilitation and management. • Topographic, phosphorus and potassium were the main factors to increase habitat suitability. • NB and CART had the highest and lowest prediction for studied species of investigated rangeland. • High potential rangeland habitats can help decision makers in better rangeland management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dust storms are believed to play an essential role in many climatological, geochemical, and environmental processes. This atmospheric phenomenon can have a significant negative impact on public health and significantly disturb natural ecosystems. Identifying dust-source areas is thus a fundamental task to control the effects of this hazard. This study is the first attempt to identify dust source areas using hybridized machine-learning algorithms. Each hybridized model, designed as an intelligent system, consists of an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), integrated with a combination of metaheuristic optimization algorithms: the bat algorithm (BA), cultural algorithm (CA), and differential evolution (DE). The data acquired from two key sources – the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Deep Blue and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) – are incorporated into the hybridized model, along with relevant data from field surveys and dust samples. Goodness-of-fit analyses are performed to evaluate the predictive capability of the hybridized models using different statistical criteria, including the true skill statistic (TSS) and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The results demonstrate that the hybridized ANFIS-DE model (with AUC = 84.1%, TSS = 0.73) outperforms the other comparative hybridized models tailored for dust-storm prediction. The results provide evidence that the hybridized ANFIS-DE model should be explored as a promising, cost-effective method for efficiently identifying the dust-source areas, with benefits for both public health and natural environments where excessive dust presents significant challenges. • A new framework was developed for identification of dust-sources. • Three novel hybridized ANFIS models were developed: ANFIS-BA, ANFIS-CA, ANFIS-DE. • The hybridized ANFIS-DE model had the highest accuracy (AUC = 84.1%, TSS = 0.73). • All hybridized models outperformed the standalone ANFIS model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The declining water level in Lake Urmia has become a significant issue for Iranian policy and decision makers. This lake has been experiencing an abrupt decrease in water level and is at real risk of becoming a complete saline land. Because of its position, assessment of changes in the Lake Urmia is essential. This study aims to evaluate changes in the water level of Lake Urmia using the space-borne remote sensing and GIS techniques. Therefore, multispectral Landsat 7 ETM + images for the years 2000, 2010, and 2017 were acquired. In addition, precipitation and temperature data for 31 years between 1986 and 2017 were collected for further analysis. Results indicate that the increased temperature (by 19%), decreased rainfall of about 62%, and excessive damming in the Urmia Basin along with mismanagement of water resources are the key factors in the declining water level of Lake Urmia. Furthermore, the current research predicts the potential environmental crisis as the result of the lake shrinking and suggests a few possible alternatives. The insights provided by this study can be beneficial for environmentalists and related organizations working on this and similar topics., Competing Interests: No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

Shallow landslides damage buildings and other infrastructure, disrupt agriculture practices, and can cause social upheaval and loss of life. As a result, many scientists study the phenomenon, and some of them have focused on producing landslide susceptibility maps that can be used by land-use managers to reduce injury and damage. This paper contributes to this effort by comparing the power and effectiveness of five machine learning, benchmark algorithms-Logistic Model Tree, Logistic Regression, Naïve Bayes Tree, Artificial Neural Network, and Support Vector Machine-in creating a reliable shallow landslide susceptibility map for Bijar City in Kurdistan province, Iran. Twenty conditioning factors were applied to 111 shallow landslides and tested using the One-R attribute evaluation (ORAE) technique for modeling and validation processes. The performance of the models was assessed by statistical-based indexes including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiver operatic characteristic curve (AUC). Results indicate that all the five machine learning models performed well for shallow landslide susceptibility assessment, but the Logistic Model Tree model (AUC = 0.932) had the highest goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy, followed by the Logistic Regression (AUC = 0.932), Naïve Bayes Tree (AUC = 0.864), ANN (AUC = 0.860), and Support Vector Machine (AUC = 0.834) models. Therefore, we recommend the use of the Logistic Model Tree model in shallow landslide mapping programs in semi-arid regions to help decision makers, planners, land-use managers, and government agencies mitigate the hazard and risk.